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METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 
AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  DESCARTES 


BY 

LINA  KAHN 


Submitted  in  partial  fulfilment  of  the  requirements  for 

the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  in  the  Faculty 

of  Philosophy,  Columbia  University 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1918 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 
AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  DESCARTES 


BY 

LIN  A  KAHN 


Submitted  in  partial  fulfilment  of  the  requirements  for 

the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  in  the  Faculty 

of  Philosophy,  Columbia  University 


i^eto  Pork 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1918 


Copyright,  1918 
By  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


Printed  from  type,  January,  1918 


<7^ 


'A  messieurs  les  archeveques  et  eveques  de  France.  Mes- 
sieurs: Je  cite  devant  vous  Monsieur  des  Cartes  et  ses  plus 
fameux  sectateurs:  je  les  accuse  d'etre  d' accord  avec  Calvin 
et  les  Calvinistes  sur  des  Principes  de  Philosophie  con- 
traire  a  la  doctrine  de  VEglise:  c'est  a  vous,  Messieurs,  d  en 
jugerl" — Louis  de  la  Ville  (le  Pere  de  Valois),  Sentiments 
de  Monsieur  des  Cartes  totichant  I'essence  et  les  proprietes 
du  corps  opposes  d  la  doctrine  de  VEglise  et  conformes  aux 
Erreurs  de  Calvin  sur  le  sujet  de  I'Eucharistie.     Paris,  1680. 


1/ 


PREFACE 

The  present  study  of  Descartes  was  undertaken  for  the  sake  of  a 
better  understanding  of  the  common  tendency  of  philosophers  to 
deal  with  the  supernatural.  Descartes  is  one  of  the  modern  philoso- 
phers who,  despite  a  strong  preference  for  scientific  investigation  of 
the  world  of  experience,  devoted  a  great  deal  of  speculation  to  tradi- 
tion. To  lift  the  veil  from  this  mystery,  his  major  as  well  as  his  minor 
works  and  correspondence  are  studied  here  in  the  light  of  his  time. 
By  this  method  we  discover  that  the  conflict  between  science  and 
theology  brought  Descartes  to  the  diplomacy  of  disguising  his  scientific 
ideas  in  a  theological  garb.  Historians  have  overlooked  his  scientific 
side  and  have  brought  out  only  his  cautious  and  timid  side.  He  is 
represented  in  the  history  of  philosophy  as  a  dialectician  and  a  ration- 
alist whose  main  concern  was  the  demonstration  of  the  existence  of 
God  and  the  soul.  The  attempt  is  here  made  to  give  to  Descartes's 
rationalism  its  proper  setting  and  to  present  his  naturalism  as  his 
genuine  philosophy. 

Unless  otherwise  indicated,  all  footnotes  refer  to  the  Adam  and 
Tannery  edition.     In  most  cases  the  spelling  has  been  modernized. 

I  take  this  occasion  to  express  my  gratitude  for  valuable  sug- 
gestions and  helpful  criticism  to  Professor  F.  J.  E.  Woodbridge, 
Professor  W.  P.  Montague,  Professor  John  Dewey,  and  Professor 
W.  T.  Bush,  all  of  Columbia  University.  My  warmest  thanks  are, 
however,  due  to  the  latter,  whose  constant  advice  and,  particularly, 
encouragement  I  most  highly  appreciate. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter    I.   Introduction:   Persistent  Problems  of  Philosophy. 

Chapter  II.   Progressive  Ideas  in  Descartes. 

1.  Break  with  authority  and  tradition ;   sincere  inquiry  in  place  of 

authority;    experience  in  place  of  tradition. 

2.  Nature  his  primary  interest;    study  of  nature  by  experiment 

and  observation. 

3.  Scientific  interpretation  of  the  world  and  of  man. 

4.  Conflict  of  his  scientific  ideas  with  theology. 

a.  Explaining  away  of  the  traditional  soul  by  his  physiology 

and  psychology. 

b.  Interference  of  his  cosm.ology  with  the  traditional  teach- 

ings about  the  "universe"  and  God. 

c.  Overthrowing    of    traditional    ethics    by    his    basis    for 

morality. 

d.  Undermining  of  the  theory  of  the  Eucharist  by  his  physics. 

5.  Elimination  of  the  traditional  problems  of  orthodox  metha- 

physics. 

Chapter  III.    Conservation  of  Traditions  Despite  Progressive 
Ideas. 

1.  The  principle  of  God  and  the  principle  of  clearness  and  dis- 

tinctness of  our  ideas  for  the  derivation  of  the  existence  of  the 
material  world;  the  Cogito  ergo  sum;  the  doctrine  of  the 
clearness  of  the  idea  of  soul. 

2.  The  traditional  problems  of  God  and  the  soul. 

a.  Proof  of  the  existence  of  God;    mixture  of  theology  and 

traditional  philosophy;    failure. 
h.  Proof  of  the  existence  of  the  soul;    mixture  of  accepted 

beliefs  and  his  own  radical  conceptions;    failure. 

c.  Lack  of  empirical  and  historical  research  in  his  treatment 

of  traditional  problems. 

d.  Interpretation  of  the  failure  in  the  solution  of  the  tradi- 

tional problems;    traditional  elements  of  his  method; 
subject-matter. 

3.  The  loose  connection  of  the   traditional   problems  with   the 

entire  scheme  of  his  system ;   motive  for  treating  them. 


Vlll  CONTENTS 

Chapter  IV.   Explanation  of  the  Conflict  between  Descartes's 
Progressive  Thinking  and  Traditions. 

1.  His  time;   history  of  the  dogma,  politics,  and  social  conditions; 

main  tendencies  in  current  thought;   main  interests. 

2.  The  effect  of  the  conditions  of  the  time  on  Descartes's  philoso- 

phy; suppression  of  his  naturalistic  tendency;  introduction  of 
theological  questions  into  his  philosophy  by  opposing  criti- 
cism ;  his  efforts  to  keep  up  with  the  orthodox  tendencies  of 
the  day  at  the  expense  of  his  sincerity  in  the  expression  of  his 
thoughts  and  the  retention  of  his  most  valuable  production, 
Le  Monde. 

3.  Descartes's  personality  as  developed  under  the  influence  of  the 

time. 

a.  Descent  and  early  education. 

b.  Characteristics  explanatory  of  his  extreme  cautiousness; 
love  of  peace  and  rest. 

4.  Facts  which  left  in  doubt  Descartes's  sincerity  in  matters  of 

belief. 

Chapter  V.   Descartes  in  the  History  of  Philosophy. 

1.  Emphasis  upon  his  rationalism  to  the  exclusion  of  his  real 

contributions. 

2.  Motive    for    the    unhistorical    reconstruction    of    Descartes's 

philosophy. 

Chapter   VI.   Conclusion. 

Supplementary  Notes: 

a.  Descartes's  doctrine  of  extension  in  the  "Calvin  Institute". 
h.  Anticipation   of   the   biological   conception   of   freedom   as 
exemplified  by  Bergson. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL  AS 
ILLUSTRATED  BY  DESCARTES 

CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION 

PERSISTENT    PROBLEMS    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

There  is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  philosophers  to  aspire  to  heaven 
and  to  explore  heavenly  regions.  Since  heaven  has  been  once  for  all 
formed  and  fixed,  the  problems  of  philosophy  are  always  the  same. 
The  persistent  problems  of  philosophy  reduce  themselves  to  the  ques- 
tion of  ultimates — the  ultimate  reality  of  the  world  and  the  ultimate 
reality  of  man.  This  question  comes  up  in  philosophy  again  and  again. 
Only  the  forms  in  which  it  appears  are  different.  They  differ  with  the 
knowledge,  temperament,  and  surroundings  of  the  philosopher.  But 
no  matter  in  what  form  this  question  comes  up  and  what  course  the 
road  of  dialectics  takes,  philosophers  all  reach  regions  that  transcend 
knowledge,  and  the  question  being  unsolved  recurs  again. 

This  question  of  ultimates  has  persisted  in  philosophy  under  the 
influence  of  theology  and  gained  firm  ground  in  the  medieval  period 
when  philosophy  was  employed  as  a  means  for  the  advancement  of 
Christian  teaching.  As  taught  in  Christianity,  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  considered  by  the  philosophers  of  that  period  to  be  the  only  reality, 
and  everything  was  studied  in  relation  to  it.  While  the  Scholastics 
took  it  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  God  is  the  ultimate  reality  and  founda- 
tion of  everything  on  earth,  philosophers  of  later  periods  found  it 
necessary  to  give  this  teaching  a  rational  basis,  and  there  resulted  a 
desperate  search  for  the  ultimate  which  is  still  continued.  Despite  the 
earnest  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  originators  of  modern  philosophy  to 
get  away  from  the  supernatural  by  suggesting  experience  as  a  substitute 
for  authority  and  nature  as  a  substitute  for  theology,  scholasticism 
persists  in  philosophy  to  this  very  day.  Both  its  subject-matter  and 
method  have  been  either  deliberately  or  unconsciously  continued.  The 
mathematical  method  of  present-day  philosophy  has  accomplished  no 
more  in  the  way  of  proving  its  presuppositions  concerning  matters 
of  fact  than  did  the  medieval  syllogistic:  method,  for  there  is  just  as 
little  difference  between  these  two  methods  as  between  the  medieval 


2         METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

''soul"  and  the  modern  "principle  of  life"  or  "consciousness."    Many 
a  philosopher  who  considers  himself  above  such  superstitions  as  believ- 
ing in  a  soul,  wastes,  however,  a  good  deal  of  his  ingenuity  in  investigat- 
ing spiritual  principles  which  are  to  perform  the  functions  of  the 
old  "soul."    That  the  supernatural  bears  a  good  deal  of  responsibility 
for  the  perplexities  in  which  philosophy  at  present  finds  itself,  a  close 
and  systematic  study  of  the  history  of  philosophy  leaves  no  doubt. 
The  supernatural,  having  once  appeared  in  philosophy,  has  never  left 
it,  or  rather,  philosophy  has  never  abandoned  it.     "In  the  manipula- 
tion of  that  theme,  however,  three  major  ideas  stand  out — God,  the  soul, 
and  the  universe.    It  is  easy  to  see  what  a  role  these  have  played  if  we 
only  consider  what  is  left  when  we  drop  out  all  speculation  about  God, 
all  speculation  about  the  soul,  and  all  speculation  about  the  universe."  ^ 
A  consideration  of  the  main  topics  of  the  leading  philosophers 
affirms  the  truth  of  this  statement.     Indeed,  there  are  hardly  any 
modern  philosophers  who  under  one  form  or  another  do  not  give  a 
more  or  less  prominent  place  to  these  ideas  in  their  works.     These 
three  ideas  led  to  many  other  theological  questions  which  are  logically 
connected  with  them.    Among  these  the  problem  of  freedom  stands  out 
conspicuously.     Descartes  wrote  Meditations,  in  which  the  existence 
of  God  and  the  immortality  of  the^soul  are  "demonstrated."    Spinoza 
entitles  his  sections  Concerning  God,  Of  the  Nature  and  Origin  of  Mind, 
Of  Human  Freedom.     God,  Freedom  and  Immortality  are  the  famous 
topics  of  Kant.    Leibnitz  also  deals  with  the  traditional  conceptions 
of  God,  whom  he  very  originally  calls  the  dominant  monad,  but  whom 
he  endows  with  all  traditional  attributes  and  merits.     His  arguments 
for  God's  existence  are  medieval,  almost  the  same  as  used  by  Des 
cartes.    The  existence  of  souls  he  does  not  even  question ;  he  takes  th 
existence  of  soul-monads  for  granted  and  builds  the  whole  world  ou^" 
of  them.     Wolf,  the  disciple  of  Leibnitz,  develops  the  latter's  phil- 
osophy into  a  purely  scholastic  system.    Berkeley's  whole  speculate ^v< 
centers  around  a  Deity.     Hume,  against  his  own  principles,  admits  a 
Deity.  Hobbes,  having  assumed  that  all  spirits,  both  finite  and  infinite, 
are  corporeal,  not  to  fail  in  consistence,  admits  at  least  a  corporeal  god. 
The  medieval  material  of  Kant's  philosophy  was  continued  by  the 
Hegelian  school,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  revival  of  scholasticism. 
The  philosophy  of  this  school  differs  from  that  of  the  medieval  only,     \ 
perhaps,  in  modernized  terms.     The  subject-matter  and  method  are 
the  same.    Subjectivism  and  absolutism  are  the  net  results  of  crystal- 
lized supernaturalism.     The  absolute  of  Bradley,  in  whom  modern 

>  W.  T.  Bush,  "The  Emancipation  of  Intelligence,"  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology,  and  Scientific 
Methods,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  169. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL        3 

scholasticism   seems    to   have   reached   its  cHmax,   is  a    good    illus- 
tration. 

Even  those  modern  philosophers  who  have  advocated  experience 
and  observation  in  opposition  to  scholasticism  did  not  get  away 
from  it  completely.  Bacon,  who  by  his  experimental  method  of 
research  had  dug  up  scholastic  philosophy  by  its  roots,  preserved 
in  the  prima  philosophia  a  purely  scholastic  spirit.  Hobbes  retained  in 
his  materialistic  system  the  scholastic  first  mover.  However,  the  best 
illustration  of  a  return  to  scholasticism  after  an  attempted  emancipa- 
tion from  it  is  Descartes.  The  present  study  is  an  inquiry  into  the 
grounds  for  this  conservatism. 


CHAPTER  II 
PROGRESSIVE  IDEAS  IN  DESCARTES 


Descartes  was  at  first  strongly  opposed  to  scholasticism.  Philosophy 
signified  to  him  the  inquiry  after  knowledge  necessary  to  man  "for  the 
conduct  of  his  life,  for  the  conservation  of  his  health,  and  for  the 
technical  arts."  ^  It  was  to  make  man  happier  by  enabling  him  through 
knowledge  of  the  forces  of  nature  "to  enjoy  without  restriction  the 
fruits  of  the  earth  and  all  the  comforts  found  therein,  and  to  free  him- 
self from  an  infinity  of  sicknesses  of  mind  and  body,  and  perhaps  from 
the  sicknesses  of  old  age."  Such  knowledge,  he  saw,  could  not  be 
obtained  by  the  method  of  the  school  which,  by  its  very  nature,  was 
not  adapted  to  scientific  inquiry.  It  was  an  exercise  in  a  skillful  deriva- 
tion of  conclusions  from  premises  which  were  nothing  but  presupposi- 
tions whose  validity  had  never  been  questioned.  But  according  to 
Descartes  "nothing  could  block  the  way  to  knowledge  more  than  to 
establish  doubtful  presuppositions  for  which  we  have  no  positive  evi- 
dence, but  only  desire,  and  to  try  to  derive  truth  from  them,"  ^  or  to 
inquire  into  objects  concerning  which  our  minds  are  incapable  of  secur- 
ing knowledge.  People  who  studied  first  causes  with  authoritatively 
established  principles  as  the  starting-point  of  the  inquiry,  he  observed, 
had  less  knowledge  of  the  world  than  those  who  gathered  their  knowl- 
edge from  experience  or  from  books  where  this  experience  is  recorded.' 
He  believed  that  the  search  for  truth  would  be  more  successful  if  it 
were  conducted  on  an  individual  basis.  The  reasonings  of  each  indi- 
vidual about  affairs  in  which  he  is  personally  interested  and  which  he 
can  verify  by  his  own  experience,  he  believed,  would  lead  to  more 
fruitful  results  than  speculation.*    "Good  sense,"  he  found,  "is  of  all 

1  "Ce  mot  signifie  I'etude  de  la  Sagesse,  et  que  par  la  sagesse  on  n'entend  pas  seulement  la  prudence 
dans  les  affaires,  mais  une  parfaite  connaissance  de  toutes  les  choses  que  I'homme  peut  savoir,  tant 
pour  la  conduite  de  sa  vie,  que  pour  la  conservation  de  sa  sante  et  I'invention  de  tous  les  arts."  Preface 
to  Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  2. 

2  "Rien  ne  nous  eloigne  plus  du  chemin  de  la  verite  que  d'etablir  certaines  choses,  comme  veritables, 
qu'aucune  raison  positive,  mais  notre  volonte  seule,  nous  persuade,  c'est-a-dire  lorsque  nous  avons 
invente  ou  imagine  quelque  chose,  et  qu'apres  cela  nos  fictions  nous  plaisent,  comme  vous  faites  a 
regard  de  ces  anges  corporels,  de  cette  ombre  de  I'essence  divine,  et  autres  choses  semblables  que 
personne  ne  doit  admettre,  parce  que  c'est  le  vrai  moyen  de  se  fermer  tout  chemin  a  la  verite."  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  V,  p.  405,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X,  p.  296. 

'  Preface  to  the  Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  2. 
*  Discours  de  la  Mithode,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  9. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL        5 

things  among  men  the  most  equally  distributed."  This  natural  capa- 
city for  reasoning  needs  only  right  training  to  be  employed  with 
success.  The  proper  function  of  our  intelligence,  he  held,  is  not  to 
solve  the  difficulties  of  the  school,  but  the  different  problems  of  life.^ 
His  method  was  directed  against  knowledge  that  was  historically 
gathered  and  transmitted  by  tradition;  it  insisted  upon  sincere  inquiry 
on  the  part  of  the  individual  and  on  the  use  of  his  own  judgment  in  the 
conduct  of  his  life.  This  method  directed  the  inquirer  to  the  natural 
realm.  Descartes  believed  that  for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  of  the 
world  one  has  to  study  the  world  itself.  He  protested  against  the  pro- 
cedure of  philosophers  who  neglect  experience  thinking  that  knowledge 
is  to  be  found  in  their  own  minds;  "ainsi  font  tous  les  astrologues,  qui, 
sans  connaitre  la  nature  des  astres,  sans  meme  en  avoir  soigneuse- 
ment  observe  les  mouvements  esperent  pouvoir  en  determiner  les  effets. 
Ainsi  font  beaucoup  de  gens  qui  etudient  la  mecanique  sans  savoir  la 
physique,  et  fabriquent  au  hasard  de  nouveaux  moteurs;  et  la  plupart 
des  philosophes,  qui,  negligeant  I'experience,  croient  que  la  verite 
sortira  de  leur  cerveau  comme  Minerve  du  front  de  Jupiter."  ^  The 
most  reliable  means  for  the  study  of  nature  was  held  by  him  to  be 
the  senses — one  must  see  and  hear  things  just  as  they  are.''  But  to 
be  able  to  see  things  just  as  they  are  the  mind  has  to  be  cleared  from 
transmitted  and  self-created  prejudices. 

These  ideas  were  very  revolutionary.  Philosophy  had  been  in  the 
middle  ages  an  ally  of  theology.  But  Descartes  saw  that  "theology 
points  the  way  to  heaven"  only  and,  therefore,  it  could  have  no  place 
in  the  philosophy  of  one  whose  purpose  was  to  study  the  world  and 
man.  Leaving  it  to  God  to  reveal  heavenly  truth,  he  broke  with  his 
medieval  predecessors  whose  interest  centered  around  man's  concern 
with  a  beyond,  and  fixed  his  attention  on  problems  which  were  to 
promote  man's  welfare  on  earth.  Forgetting  history  and  tradition 
and  the  methods  of  the  school,  he  went  out  to  meet  the  problems  of 
life  and  to  study  nature  by  experience. 


Instead  of  shutting  himself  up  in  his  study  and  brooding  over  the 
difficulties  of  the  school,  Descartes  rejected  all  its  solutions  as  doubtful 

'  "  II  faut  songer  a  augmenter  les  lumieres  naturelles,  non  pour  pouvoir  resoudre  telle  ou  telle  difficulte 
de  I'ecole,  mais  pour  que  I'intelligence  puisse  montrer  a  la  volonte  le  parti  qu'elle  doit  prendre  dans 
chaque  situation  de  la  vie."  Regies,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  204,  Ed.  Cousin;  Adam  and  Tannery  Edition, 
Vol.  X.  p.  361. 

6  Idem,  p.  380,  Adam  and  Tannery  Edition;  p.  224,  Cousin. 

'  "II  vaut  beaucoup  mieux  se  servir  de  ses  propres  yeux  pour  se  conduire,  et  jouir  par  meme  moyen 
de  la  beaute  des  couleurs  et  de  la  lumiere,  que  non  pas  de  les  avoir  fermes  et  suivre  la  conduite  d'un 
autre."    Preface  to  Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  3. 


6        METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

and  started  on  his  philosophical  career  with  his  eyes  wide  open  to  the 
world.  He  plunged  into  life,  according  to  his  own  account,  "collecting 
varied  experience."  His  first  works  are  free  from  all  metaphysical  ^ 
interest.  The  lost  fragments,  a  treatise  on  Music,  Quelques  Considera- 
tions sur  les  Sciences,  Algebra,  Democritica,  Experimenta,  Praeambula, 
Initium  sapientiae  timor  domini,  and  Olympica,  seem,  as  their  titles 
suggest,  to  be  anything  but  metaphysics.  Regulae  ad  directionem 
ingenii,^  his  earliest  treatise  extant,  shows  that  his  only  concern  at  the 
outset  was  scientific  knowledge,  which  limits  scientific  investigation 
to  objects  of  which  there  can  be  obtained  knowledge  equal  in  certainty 
to  mathematics. ^"^  In  this  work  he  looked  for  no  transcendental 
principles  to  support  his  scientific  conclusions.  There  is  no  mention 
of  a  "Perfect  Being"  or  of  the'' Co  gito  ergo  sum.''  Le  Monde  has  a  purely 
physical  interest.  He  develops  there  his  system  of  science  by  studying 
nature  independently  of  all  ontology  or  metaphysics.  The  meta- 
physical principle  of  God,  introduced  as  if  only  an  appendix  to  the 
argument,  despite  Descartes's  intention  to  give  it  the  appearance  of 
importance,  has  no  bearing  on  the  whole  scheme  of  his  physics  and 
seems  to  be  merely  a  later  addition.  His  science  as  well  as  his  method 
were  established  first,  before  he  had  undertaken  any  ontological 
investigations. 

His  primary  concern  was  nature.  He  set  out  to  cultivate  a  philoso- 
phy which  would  give  him  "knowledge  highly  useful  in  life,  and  in 
place  of  the  speculative  philosophy  usually  taught  in  the  Schools,  to 
discover  a  practical  philosophy  by  means  of  which,  knowing  the  power 
and  action  of  fire,  water,  air,  the  stars,  the  heavens,  and  all  the  other 
bodies  that  surround  us,  as  distinctly  as  we  know  the  various  crafts 
of  our  artisans,  we  might  also  apply  these  forces  to  all  the  uses  to  which 
they  are  adapted,  and  thus  make  ourselves  the  lords  and  possessors 
of  nature."  ^^  All  sciences,  even  mathematics,  he  valued  only  inas- 
much as  they  served  this  purpose.^^ 

'  Metaphysical  is  here  used  in  the  sense  of  supernatural,  transcending  knowledge. 

•  Regulae  ad  directionem  ingenii  (first  appeared  in  Latin,  1701). 

1"  "  II  ne  faut  nous  occuper  que  des  objets  dont  notre  esprit  parait  capable  d'acquerir  une  connaissance 
certaine  et  indubitable."  Rigles,  Vol.  XI,  p.  204,  Ed.  Cousin;  Vol.  X,  p.  362,  Adam  and  Tannery 
Edition. 

11  "Car  elles  m'ont  fait  voir  qu'il  est  possible  de  parvenir  a  des  connaissances  qui  soient  fort  utiles  a 
la  vie,  et  qu'au  lieu  de  cette  Philosophie  speculative,  qu'on  enseigne  dans  les  ecoles,  on  en  peut  trouver 
une  pratique,  par  laquelle  connaissant  la  force  et  les  actions  du  feu,  de  I'eau,  de  I'air,  des  astres,  des 
cieux,  et  de  tous  les  autres  corps  qui  nous  environnent,  aussi  distinctement  que  nous  connaissons  les 
divers  metiers  de  nos  artisans,  nous  les  pourrions  employer  en  meme  fagon  a  tous  les  usages  auquels  ils 
sont  propres,  et  ainsi  nous  rendre  comme  maitres  et  possesseurs  de  la  nature.  Discours  de  la  Methode, 
Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  61.    Transl.  by  Veitch. 

'2  "Au  lieu  d'expliquer  un  Phenomene  seulement,  je  me  suis  resolu  d'expliquer  tous  les  Phenomfines 
de  la  nature,  c'est  a  dire,  toute  la  Physique.  Et  le  dessein  que  j'ai  me  contente  plus  qu'aucun  autre  que 
j'aie  jamais  eil."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  I,  p.  70.  "Et  m'etant  propose  une  etude  pour  laquelle  tout  le  temps 
de  ma  vie,  quelque  longue  qu'elle  puisse  etre,  ne  saurait  suffire,  je  ferais  tres  mal  d'en  employer  aucune 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL         7 

He  was  eager  to  get  his  information  from  original  sources  and  made 
use  of  every  occasion  to  gather  observations  which  might  help  him  to 
understand  nature.  In  travelling  from  Italy  to  France  he  turned 
aside  at  the  Alps  to  measure  their  heights  and  to  make  observations 
concerning  thunder,  lightning,  and  whirlwinds.  While  serving  in  the 
army  he  gathered  data  on  mechanics.  He  examined  the  machinery  of 
strategic  equipments  whenever  he  could.  In  order  to  learn  the  natural 
order  of  the  stars  he  observed  the  comets. ^^  To  explain  the  reflection 
of  light  he  studied  optics  and  got  a  workman  to  make  the  lenses 
necessary  for  his  experiments.  He  cultivated  in  his  own  garden  the 
plants  which  he  needed  for  his  scientific  research.^*  Being  interested 
in  anatomy,  he  dissected  animals.  He  visited  butchers  to  see  animals 
killed  and  then  had  brought  to  his  house  parts  which  he  dissected  for 
himself  at  leisure. ^^  To  study  experimentally  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  he  investigated  the  structure  of  the  heart  of  fishes  and  of  ani- 
mals.^® And  in  order  to  explain  memory  and  imagination,  he  tells  us, 
he  dissected  various  specimens. ^^  In  the  Dioptrics  he  represents 
graphically  the  human  brain  on  the  analogy  of  that  of  a  calf, 
in  order  to  show  "what  man  and  animals  have  in  common." 
From  the  study  of  animals  he  went  on  to  the  study  of  man,  experi- 
menting and  dissecting  with  the  greatest  care  and  attention.  Think- 
ing that  the  application  of  the   laws  of  medicine  would   not  only 

partie  a  des  choses  qui  n'y  servent  point.  Mais,  outre  cela,  pour  ce  qui  est  des  nombres,  je  n'ai  jamais 
pretendu  d'y  rien  savoir,  et  je  m'y  suis  si  peu  exerce  que  je  puis  dire  avec  verite  que,  bien  que  j'ai  autre- 
fois appris  la  division  et  I'extraction  de  la  racine  carree,  il  y  a  toutefois  plus  de  dix-huit  ans  que  je  ne 
les  sais  plus,  et  si  j'avais  besoin  de  m'en  servir,  il  faudrait  que  je  les  etudiasse  dans  quelque  livre  d'Arith- 
metique,  ou  que  je  tachasse  de  les  inventer,  tout  de  meme  que  si  je  ne  les  avais  jamais  sii."  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  II,  p.  i68. 

"Vous  savez  qu'il  y  a  deja  plus  de  quinze  ans  que  je  fais  profession  de  negliger  la  Geometric,  et  dene 
m'arreter  jamais  a  la  solution  d'aucun  probleme,  si  ce  n'est  a  la  priere  de  quelque  ami,  comme  en  cette 
occasion."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  95. 

"Mais  je  n'ai  resolu  de  quitter  que  la  geometric  abstraite,  c'est  a  dire,  la  recherche  des  questions  qui 
ne  servent  qu'a  exercer  I'esprit  et  ce  afin  d'avoir  d'autant  plus  de  loisir  de  cultiver  une  autre  sorte  de 
geometric,  qui  se  propose  pour  question  I'explication  des  phenomenes  de  la  nature."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  II, 
p.  268. 

"Je  vous  envoyais  la  solution  de  toutes  les  questions  qu'un  de  vos  Geometres  avait  confesse  ne  savoir 
pas.  Mais  n'attendez  plus  rien  de  moi,  s'il  vous  plait,  en  Geometric;  car  vous  savez  qu'il  y  a  longtemps 
que  je  proteste  de  ne  m'y  vouloir  plus  exercer,  et  je  pense  pouvoir  honnetement  y  mettre  fin."  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  II,  p.  361. 

IS  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  269,  Ed.  Cousin. 

"  "Je  laisse  croitre  les  plantes  de  mon  jardin,  dont  j 'attends  quelques  experiences  pour  tacher  de  con- 
tinuer  ma  Physique."    Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  442. 

'^  "J'allais  quasi  tous  les  jours  en  la  maison  d'un  boucher,  pour  lui  voir  tuer  des  betes,  et  faisais 
apporter  de  la  en  mon  logis  les  parties  que  je  voulais  anatomiser  plus  a  loisir;  ce  que  j'ai  encore  fait 
plusieurs  fois  en  tous  les  lieux  oil  j'ai  ete."    Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  621. 

"En  faisant  moi  meme  la  dissection  de  divers  animaux.  C'est  un  exercise  oQ  je  me  suis  souvent 
occupe  depuis  onze  ans  et  je  crois,  qu'il  n'y  a  guere  de  medecinc  qui  y  ait  regarde  de  si  pres  que  moi." 
Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  525. 

18  Idem. 

"  "J'anatomise  maintenant  les  tetes  de  divers  animaux,  pour  expliquer  en  quoi  consistent  I'imagi- 
nation,  la  memoirc."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  I,  p.  263. 


8        METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

secure  the  health  of  man,  but  also  make  him  wiser  and  increase  his 
ingenuity,  he  tells  us,  he  decided  to  devote  all  his  life  to  experi- 
mental research  in  this  field. ^* 

The  necessity  of  sufficient  experimentation  as  the  basis  of  adequate 
interpretation  is  over  and  over  again  emphasized.  He  was  sure  he 
could  work  out  a  system  of  physics  if  he  had  the  "equipment  for  making 
the  necessary  experiments."  ^^  He  hesitated  at  first  to  give  an  explana- 
tion of  the  formation  of  man  on  account  of  want  of  experience,  as  he 
explained  in  a  letter  to  Mersenne.^"  He  appealed  to  physicians  and 
surgeons  to  testify  even  to  his  affirmation  that  there  are  no  sensations 
other  than  those  which  take  place  in  the  brain. 

In  building  his  scientific  system  he  constantly  referred  to  the  evi- 
dence of  facts;  he  verified  his  hypothetical  conclusions  as  far  as  possible, 
"in  making  trial  in  various  particular  difficulties  of  the  acquired  notions 
of  physics."  He  appealed  to  experience  to  support  the  mechanical 
principle  of  his  physics  and  his  laws  of  motion.^^ 


On  the  basis  of  experiments  and  of  observations  Descartes  con- 
structed his  system  of  physics  expounded  in  the  first  treatises,  Le 
Monde,  Dioptrique,  and  Meteores.  In  these  he  gives  us  a  scientific  inter- 
pretation of  the  world  and  man.  Nature  is  the  source  of  all  his  explana- 
tions; and  by  nature,  he  understands  "not  divinity  or  any  other  imag- 
inary power,  but  matter  itself"  ^^  acting  according  to  the  laws  of 
mechanics.  From  the  formation  of  the  celestial  sphere  and  the  planets 
down  to  the  formation  of  man,  all  is  explained  by  mechanical  princi- 
ples. In  Le  Monde  the  world  is  represented  as  a  self-moving  mechan- 
ism where  every  effect  has  its  natural  and  necessary  cause.  There  is 
no  question  of  a  creation,  for  the  supposition  that  matter  and  motion 
ever  existed  is  sufficient  explanation,  according  to  Descartes,  of  the 
world's  origin  and  existence.    "Qu'on  me  donne  I'etendue  et  le  mouve- 

1'  Discours  de  la  Methode,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  63. 

"  "Je  ne  doute  presque  point  que  je  ne  puisse  achever  toute  la  Physique  selon  mon  souhait,  pourvu 
que  j'aie  du  loisir  et  la  commodite  de  faire  quelques  experiences."    Corr.,  Vol.  V,  p.  261. 

2"  "Et  meme  je  me  suis  aventure  d'y  vouloir  expliquer  la  fagon  dent  se  forme  I'animal  des  le  com- 
mencement de  son  origine.  Je  dis  I'animal  en  general;  car  pour  I'homme  en  particulier,  je  ne  I'oserais 
entrependre,  faute  d'avoir  assez  d'experience  pour  cet  effet."    Corr.,  Vol.  V,  p.  112. 

21  "Je  n'ai  rien  du  lout  considere  que  la  figure,  le  mouvement  et  la  grandeur  de  chaque  corps,  n'y 
examine  aucune  autre  chose  que  ce  que  les  lois  des  mecaniques,  dont  la  verite  peut  etre  prouvee  parune 
infinite  d'experiences."    Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  318. 

22  "Sachez  done,  premierement,  que  par  la  Nature  je  n'entends  point  ici  quelque  Deesse,  ou  quelque 
autre  sorte  de  puissance  imaginaire;  mais  que  je  me  sers  de  cet  mot,  pour  signifier  la  Matiere  meme, 
en  tant  que  je  la  considere  avec  toutes  les  qualites  que  je  lui  ai  attribuees,  comprises  toutes  ensemble, 
et  sous  cette  condition  que  Dieu  continue  de  la  conserver  en  la  meme  fagon  qu'il  I'a  creee."  Le  Monde, 
Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  36. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL        9 

ment  et  je  vais  faire  le  monde."-*  The  natural  laws  are  sufficient  to 
have  transformed  the  world  from  chaos  into  its  present  state.  More- 
over, the  Mosaic  story  of  creation,  a  central  point  of  the  contemporary 
metaphysics,  gave,  according  to  Descartes,  "no  explanation  of  things  of 
nature."  The  occult  substantial  forms  or  real  qualities  of  his  prede- 
cessors, a  basic  element  of  the  orthodox  metaphysics,  he  regarded  as  a 
refuge  of  ignorance.  Though  the  Bible  and  the  Council  of  Trent  gave 
enough  justification  for  the  supposition  of  such  fantastical  existences, 
these  "poor  innocents"  had  to  be  banished  from  his  physics  as  "chi- 
meras," unintelligible  and  useless  for  the  explanation  of  facts  of 
nature.  For  all  qualities,  motion,  and  change,  his  theory  of  particles 
accounted  in  a  natural  way.  One  and  the  same  matter  was  the  material 
out  of  which  heaven  and  earth  and  all  the  products  on  earth  were 
formed.  Man  originated  from  the  same  material  as  plants  and  animals. 
Human  life  is  accounted  for  in  naturalistic  terms.  Descartes  does  not 
suppose  .any  other  principle  of  life  but  the  blood  warmed  by  the  fire  of 
the  heart.  This  material^*  principle  and  the  proper  arrangement  of  our 
organs  condition  all  our  life  functions;  they  "exist  in  us  independently 
of  all  power  of  thinking,  and  consequently  without  being  in  any 
measure  dependent  on  the  soul."  ^^  It  seemed  more  plausible  to  him  to 
explain  the  life  of  plants,  animals  and  man  by  a  common  principle, 
namely,  heat,  than  to  suppose  a  special  principle  of  life  for  each,  "car 
la  chaleur  etant  un  principe  commun  pour  les  animaux,  les  plantes,  et 
les  autres  corps,  ce  n'est  pas  merveille  que  la  meme  serve  a  faire  vivre 
un  homme  et  une  plante."  ^^  Many  years  of  experimentation  proved 
to  him  that  there  is  nothing  in  man  that  can  not  be  explained  in  a 
natural  way.^^  The  formation  as  well  as  the  growth  and  functions  of 
the  human  body  he  explains  scientifically.  He  does  not  assume  any 
supernatural  germ  in  the  formation  of  the  foetus;  nature  is,  according  to 

25  "  Je  ne  m'arrete  pas  a  chercher  la  cause  de  leurs  mouvements:  car  il  me  suffit  de  penser,  qu'elles  ont 
commence  a  se  mouvoir,  aussitot  que  le  Monde  a  commence  d'etre  .  .  .  Mes  raisons,  dis-je,  me 
satisfont  assez  la-dessus;  mais  je  n'ai  pas  encore  occasion  de  vous  les  dire.  Et  cependant  vous 
pouvez  imaginer,  si  bon  vous  semble,  ainsi  que  font  la  plupart  des  Doctes,  qu'il  y  a  quelque  Premier 
Mobile,  qui,  roulant  autour  du  Monde  avec  une  vitesse  incomprehensible,  est  I'origine  et  la  source  de 
tous  les  autres  mouvements  qui  s'y  rencontrent."    Le  Monde,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  11. 

2*  "Ce  que  je  nomme  ici  des  esprits,  ne  sont  que  des  corps,  et  ils  n'ont  point  d'autre  propriete,  sinon  que 
ce  sont  des  corps  tres  petits,  et  qui  se  meuvent  tres  vite,  ainsi  que  les  parties  de  la  flame  qui  sort  d'un 
flambeau."    Les  Passions,  Art.  X,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  335. 

25  "Examinant  les  fonctions,  qui  pouvaient  .  .  .  etre  en  ce  corps,  j'y  trouvais  exactement  toutes 
celles  qui  peuvent  etre  en  nous  sans  que  nous  pensions,  ni  par  consequent  que  notre  ame,  c'est  a  dire, 
cette  partie  distincte  du  corps  dont  il  a  ete  dit  ci-dessus  que  la  nature  n'est  que  de  penser,  y  contribae." 
Discours,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  46.    Transl.  by  Veitch. 

26  Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  122. 

2'  "  Je  parlerai  de  1 'homme  en  mon  Monde  un  peu  plus  que  je  ne  pensais,  car  j'entreprends  d'expliquer 
toutes  ses  principales  fonctions.  J'ai  deja  ecrit  celles  qui  appartiennent  a  la  vie,  comme  la  digestion  des 
viandes,  le  battement  du  pouls,  la  distribution  de  I'aliment  etc.,  et  les  cinq  sens.  J 'anatomise  maintenant 
les  tetes  de  divers  animaux,  pour  expliquer  en  quoi  consistent  I'imagination,  la  memoire,  etc."  Corr., 
Vol.  I,  p.  263. 


10  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

him,  sufficient  for  its  formation,  "provided  one  supposes  nature  to  act 
according  to  the  exact  laws  of  mechanics."  ^^  When  the  objection 
arose  that  it  was  ridiculous  to  attribute  such  an  important  phenomenon 
as  the  formation  of  the  foetus  to  such  a  cause,  he  said,  "mais  quelles 
plus  grandes  causes  faut-il  done  que  les  lois  eternelles  de  la  nature? 
Veut-on  I'intervention  immediate  de  I'intelligence?  De  quelle  intelli- 
gence? De  Dieu  lui-meme?  Pourquoi  done  nait-il  des  monstres?" 
All  the  movements  which  accompany  our  passions  or  affections  are 
shown  to  be  produced  by  the  mere  mechanism  of  the  body.^^ 

In  his  scientific  system  his  real  originality  and  ingenuity  are  revealed. 
Le  Monde  contains,  in  germ,  theories  of  present-day  science.  Descartes 
introduced  into  physics  the  doctrine  of  the  continuity  of  matter;  he 
anticipated  modern  scientists  in  his  explanation  of  light,  heat,  sound, 
weight,  and  in  the  supposition  of  a  constant  amount  of  matter  and 
motion ;  he  first  applied  the  principle  of  mechanism  to  the  explanation 
of  the  world  and  man ;  he  discovered  long  before  Toricelli  and  Pascal 
the  fact  that  the  rise  of  the  water  in  a  tube  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
pressure  of  the  air;  he  was  the  first  to  give  a  theory  of  undulation;  he 
explained  the  rainbow  and  its  colors;  his  theory  of  particles  suggests 
the  molecular  theory. 


Descartes's  scientific  ideas  of  nature  and  man  conflicted  with  the 
teachings  of  theology.  Thus  his  physiology  and  psychology  do  away 
with  the  soul.  Descartes's  description  of  man  is  that  of  a  perfect 
automaton,  such  as  he  is  said  to  have  pictured  the  animal  only.  He 
himself,  however,  called  special  attention  to  the  fact  that  for  the 
explanation  of  the  functions  of  the  human  body  he  did  not  demand 
any  other  organs  or  principle  of  life  than  those  similar  to  the  ones  that 
animals  also  possess. ^'^  He  found  that  the  automaton  theory  was  a 
true  description  not  only  of  animals,  but  also  of  man.  If  art  in  imita- 
tion of  nature  can  produce  automata  in  which  all  possible  movements 
take  place,  there  is  no  reason,  he  said,  why  nature  itself  should  not 
be  able  to  produce  automata  which  are  more  perfect  than  those 

28  Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  525. 

2*  "J'espere  donner  cet  ete  un  petit  Traite  des  passions,  dans  lequel  on  verra  clairement  comment 
tous  les  mouvements  de  nos  membres  qui  accompagnent  nos  passions  ou  affections  sont  produits,  selon 
moi,  non  par  notre  ame,  mais  pour  le  seul  mecanisme  de  notre  corps."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  344,  Latin; 
Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X,  p.  240. 

^  "Or  avant  que  je  passe  a  la  description  de  Tame  raisonnable,  je  desire  encore  que  vous  fassiez  un 
peu  de  reflexion,  sur  tout  ce  que  je  viens  de  dire  de  cette  Machine;  et  que  vous  consideriez,  premiere- 
ment,  que  je  n'ai  suppose  en  elle  aucuns  organes,  ni  aucuns  ressorts,  qui  ne  soient  tels,  qu'on  se  peut 
tres  aisement  persuader  qu'il  y  en  a  de  tout  semblables,  tant  en  nous,  que  mSme  aussi  en  plusieurs 
animaux  sans  raison."    Traite  de  I'Homme,  p.  200. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  II 

produced  by  the  human  hand,  and  more  perfect  than  the  automaton 
brute,  i.  e.,  a  mechanism  whose  construction  can  account  for  all  the 
manifestations  of  human  life.^^  Nay,  rather,  he  found  a  soul  unneces- 
sary in  the  human  body:  "il  est  plus  surprenant  qu'il  y  ait  une  ame 
dans  chaque  corps  humain,  que  de  n'en  point  trouver  dans  les  betes."  ^^ 
Indeed,  it  is  superfluous  to  add  a  soul  to  the  machine  which  Descartes 
represented  as  performing,  independently  of  the  soul,  the  following 
functions:  "  .  .  .la  digestion  des  viandes,  le  battement  du  coeur 
et  des  arteres,  la  nourriture  et  la  croissance  des  membres,  la  respiration, 
la  veille  et  le  sommeil;  la  reception  de  la  lumiere,  des  sons,  des  odeurs, 
des  goilts,  de  la  chaleur,  et  de  telles  autres  qualites,  dans  les  organes  des 
sens  exterieurs ;  I'impression  de  leurs  idees  dans  I'organe  du  senscommun 
et  de  I'imagination,  la  retention  ou  I'empreinte  de  ces  idees  dans  la 
Memoire;  les  mouvements  interieurs  des  Appetits  et  des  Passions; 
enfin  les  mouvements  exterieurs  de  tous  les  membres,  qui  suivent  si  a 
propos,  tant  des  actions  des  objets  qui  se  presentent  aux  sens,  que  des 
passions,  et  des  impressions  qui  se  rencontrent  dans  la  Memoire,  .  ."  ^^ 
If  all  these  functions  are  performed,  as  Descartes  says,^*  by  the  machine 
in  a  perfectly  natural  way,  through  the  mere  disposition  of  the  organs 
with  no  other  principle  of  life  than  the  blood  excited  by  the  material 
fire  continually  kindling  in  the  heart,  what  is  there  left  for  the  soul  to 
do?  Nothing,  says  Descartes  himself,  but  the  thinking.^^  But  he 
accounted  even  for  thinking  (by  which  he  understands  perceiving, 
imagining,  remembering,  and  feeling),  as  a  function  of  the  machine 
derived  from  the  mere  material  principle.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  even 
expressed  the  idea  that  the  body  can  exist  without  a  soul  just  as  the 
soul  without  a  body;  "on  pent  appeler  ces  deux  substances  acciden- 
telles,  en  ce  que  ne  considerant  que  le  corps  seul,  nous  n'y  voyons  rien 
qui  demande  d'etre  uni  a  Tame,  et  rien  dans  Tame,  qui  demand?  d'etre 
uni  au  corps."  ^^  He  did  not,  however,  attempt  to  describe  the  soul  as 
existing  without  a  body.  In  describing  the  functions  attributed  to  the 
soul,  he  brought  in  the  different  organs  of  the  body  engaged  in  per- 
forming these  functions,  "I'ame  humaine  separee  du  corps  n'a  point 

31  "II  est  conforme  a  la  raison  que  I'art  imitant  la  nature,  et  les  hommes  pouvant  construire  divers 
automates,  ou  il  se  trouve  du  mouvement  sans  aucune  pensee,  la  nature  puisse  de  son  cote  produire  ces 
automates,  et  bien  plus  excellents,  comme  les  brutes,  que  ceux  qui  viennent  de  main  d'homme,  surtout  ne 
voyant  aucune  raison  pour  laquelle  la  pensee  doive  se  trouver  partout  ou  nous  voyons  une  conformation 
de  membres  telle  que  celle  dex  animaux."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  277,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X, 
p.  206. 

32  Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  277. 

33  Traite  de  V Homme,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  201. 

34  Idem. 

35  "Apres  avoir  ainsi  considere  toutes  les  functions  qui  appartiennent  au  corps  seul,  il  est  aise  de 
connaitre  qu'il  ne  reste  rien  en  nous  que  nous  devions  attribuer  a  notre  ame,  sinon  nos  pensees."  Les 
Passions,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  342. 

36  Corr..  Vol.  Ill,  p.  461,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  S78. 


12  METAPHYSICS     OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

proprement  de  sentiment;  ^'^  but  there  is  in  his  Traite  de  V Homme  an 
attempt  fully  to  describe  the  body  existing  without  a  soul.  Man  is 
compared  to  a  hydraulic  machine,  the  different  parts  of  which  are  lik- 
ened to  the  nerves  and  organs,  and  the  running  water  to  the  blood.^' 
He  found  in  us  no  external  action,  as  he  says,  which  could  assure  us 
of  the  existence  of  a  thinking  soul  and  of  the  fact  that  our  body  is  not  a 
mere  machine  which  moves  of  itself. ^^  In  the  Objections  et  Reponses 
he  says  that  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  no  life  movements  could  take 
place  in  us,  if,  having  a  soul,  we  had  not  the  necessary  physical  condi- 
tions; these  could,  however,  be  produced  in  a  mere  machine  if  it  had 
the  same  physical  construction  as  ours.^"  The  life  of  a  body  depends 
not  upon  the  existence  of  a  soul  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  the  existence  of 
the  soul  depends  upon  the  warmth  and  movement  of  the  body;  and, 
therefore,  death  is  caused  not  by  the  departure  of  a  soul,  but  by  the 
absence  of  warmth  and  by  the  destruction  of  an  important  organ. *^ 
The  difference  between  a  living  and  a  dead  body,  according  to  Des- 
cartes, is  just  the  same  as  between  a  machine  whose  mechanism  is  in 
order,  so  that  the  machine  is  going,  and  one  whose  mechanism  is 
broken,  so  that  the  functioning  has  stopped. ^^ 

"  Corr.,  Vol.  V,  p.  402,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X,  p.  292. 

^  "Et  veritablement  Ton  peut  fort  bien  comparer  les  nerfs  de  la  machine  que  je  vous  decris,  aux  tuyaux 
des  machines  de  ces  fontaines;  ses  muscles  et  ses  tendons,  aux  autres  divers  engins  et  ressorts  qui  servent 
a  les  mouvoir;  ses  esprits  animaux,  a  I'eau  qui  les  remue,  dont  le  coeur  est  la  source,  et  les  concavites 
du  cerveau  sent  les  regards.  De  plus,  la  respiration,  et  autres  telles  actions  qui  lui  sont  naturelles  et  ordi- 
naires,  et  qui  dependent  du  cours  des  esprits,  sont  comme  les  mouvements  d'une  horloge,  ou  d'un  moulin, 
que  le  cours  ordinaire  de  I'eau  peut  rendre  continus.  Les  objets  exterieurs,  qui  par  leur  seule  presence 
agissent  centre  les  organes  de  ses  sens,  et  qui  par  ce  moyen  la  determinent  a  se  mouvoir  en  plusieurs 
diverses  fagons,  selon  que  les  parties  de  son  cerveau  sont  disposees,  sont  comme  des  Etrangers  qui, 
entrant  dans  quelques  unes  des  grottes  de  ces  fontaines,  causent  eux-memes  sans  y  penser  les  mouve- 
ments qui  s'y  font  en  leur  presence:  car  ils  n'y  peuvent  entrer  qu'en  marchant  sur  certains  carreaux 
tenement  disposes,  que,  par  exemple,  s'ils  approchent  d'une  Diane  qui  se  baigne,  ils  la  feront  cacher  dans 
des  rosea  ux. 

.  Et  enfin  quand  I'dme  raisonnable  sera  en  cette  machine,  elle  y  aura  son  siege  principal  dans  le 
cerveau,  et  sera  la  comme  le  fontenier,  qui  doit  etre  dans  les  regards  oii  se  vont  rendre  tous  les  tuyaux 
de  ces  machines,  quand  il  veut  exciter,  ou  empecher,  ou  changer  en  quelque  fagon  leurs  mouvements." 
Traite  de  I' Homme,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  130. 

5'  "Enfin  il  n'y  a  aucune  des  nos  actions  exterieures,  qui  puisse  assurer  ceux  qui  les  examinent,  que 
notre  corps  n'est  pas  seulement  une  machine  qui  se  remue  de  soi-meme,  mais  qu'il  y  a  aussi  en  lui  une 
ame  qui  a  des  pensees,  excepte  les  paroles,  ou  autres  signes  faits  a  propos  des  sujets  qui  se  presentent, 
sans  se  rapporter  a  aucune  passion."    Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  574. 

^0  Objections  et  Reponses,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  52,  Ed.  Cousin. 

<i  "Voyant  que  tous  les  corps  morts  sont  prives  de  chaleur,  et  ensuite  de  mouvement,  on  c'est  imagine 
que  c'etait  I'absence  de  I'ame  qui  faisait  cesser  ces  mouvements  et  cette  chaleur  .  .  .  on  a  cru, 
sans  raison,  que  notre  chaleur  naturelle  et  tous  les  mouvements  de  nos  corps  dependent  de  I'ame:  au 
lieu  qu'on  devait  penser,  au  contraire,  que  I'ame  ne  s'absente  lorsqu'on  meurt,  qu'a  cause  que  cette 
chaleur  cesse,  et  que  les  organes  qui  servent  a  mouvoir  le  corps  se  corrompent."  Les  Passions,  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  XI,  p.  330. 

"  "Le  corps  d'un  homme  vivant  differe  autant  de  celui  d'un  homme  mort,  que  fait  une  montre,  ou 
autre  automate  (c'est  a  dire,  autre  machine  qui  se  meut  de  soi-meme),  lorsqu'elle  est  montee,  et  qu'elle 
a  en  soi  le  principe  corporel  des  mouvements  pour  lesquels  elle  est  instituee,  avec  tout  ce  qui  est  requis 
pour  son  action,  et  la  meme  montre,  ou  autre  machine,  lorsqu'elle  est  rompue  et  que  le  principe  de  son 
mouvement  cesse  d'agir."    Ibid. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  I3 

He  superimposes,  however,  on  the  mechanically  living  and  thinking 
organism  a  rational  soul.  But  the  compromise  is  unsatisfactory  to  both 
the  scientist  and  the  theologian,  for  Descartes  calls  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  rational  soul  does  not  participate  in  any  of  the  functions 
described  by  him  as  mechanistic.  The  soul  is  thus  explained  away; 
the  name  of  soul  only  is  preserved  for  consciousness.^^  The  fact  that 
he  describes  the  pineal  gland  as  the  seat  of  the  soul  seems  to  affirm 
that  soul  stands  for  the  mind  only.  For  in  the  Passions  he  alleged 
that  properly  speaking  one  can  not  place  the  soul  in  one  particular 
organ  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  others,  because  the  existence  of  it  is 
conditioned  by  the  disposition  of  all  the  organs  of  the  body;  and  its 
non-existence  by  their  dissociation.^*  In  his  theory  of  consciousness 
there  is,  however,  no  room  left  for  the  psychical.  There  are  no  psychi- 
cal images  or  sensations  which  in  modern  psychology  are  supposed  to 
constitute  the  mind.  Descartes,  on  the  contrary,  emphatically  combats 
the  necessity  of  their  existence.*^  He  finds  that  the  problem  of  knowl- 
edge is  not  solved  by  the  supposition  of  images,  for  if  the  image  is  the 
exact  copy  of  the  object  there  is  no  difference  between  cognition  of 
objects  or  of  images."*^  Neither  is  there  in  his  psychology  any  spiritual 
principle  of  unification  of  thought.  The  unity  of  perception  and 
thought,  despite  the  doubleness  of  our  organs  and  the  manifoldness  of 
our  sensations,  is  explained  as  brought  about  by  a  corporeal  element, 
the  pineal  gland,  i.  e.,  that  part  of  the  brain  which  is,  as  he  says,  not 
double. 

The  mind  he  further  identifies  with  the  activity  of  thinking;  think- 
ing, he  says,  is  not  an  attribute  of  something  that  thinks,  but  is  the 
very  essence  of  the  mind  as  extension  is  the  very  essence  of  body."*^ 
The  mind  exists  only  when  consciousness  exists,  i.  e.,  only  when  we 
think.    To  say  that  consciousness  exists  and  we  do  not  think  is  a  con- 

^  "II  n'y  a  qu'une  seule  ame  dans  I'homme,  c'est  a  dire,  la  raisonnable;  car  il  ne  faut  compter  pour 
actions  humaines  que  celles  qui  dependent  de  la  raison."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  512,  Ed.  Cousin. 

"Et  comme  Vesprit  ou  I'dme  raisonnable  est  distincte  du  corps  .  .  .  c'est  avec  juste  raison  que 
nous  lui  donnons  a  elle  seule  le  nom  d'dme."    Ibid,  p.  513. 

"Quod  autem  animam  raiionalem  nomine  mentis  humance  appellet,  laudo:  sic  enim  vitat  aequivo- 
cationem,  quae  est  in  voce  animce,  atque  me  liac  in  re  imitatur."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  347. 

**  Les  Passions,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI.  p.  351. 

**  "II  faut,  outre  cela,  prendre  garde  a  ne  pas  supposer  que,  pour  sentir,  I'ame  ait  besoin  de  contempler 
quelques  images  qui  soyent  envoyees  par  les  objets  jusques  au  cerveau,  ainsi  que  font  communement  nos 
Philosophes."    Dioptrique,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  112. 

<6  "II  faut  au  moins  que  nous  remarquions  qu'il  n'y  a  aucunes  images  qui  doivent  en  tout  resembler 
aux  objets  qu'elles  representent:  car  autrement  il  n'y  aurait  point  de  distinction  entre  I'objet  et  son 
image.  II  est  seulement  question  de  savoir  comment  elles  peuvent  donner  moyen  a  I'ame  de  sentir 
toutes  les  diverses  qualites  des  objets  auquels  elles  se  rapportent."  Dioptrique,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  113. 
By  "I'ame"  he  means  here,  as  explained  in  the  above  quotation,  the  human  mind. 

"  "La  pensee  n'est  pas  congue  comme  un  attribut  qui  peut  etre  joint  ou  separe  de  la  chose  qui  pense; 
.  .  .  la  pensee  constitue  son  essence,  ainsi  que  I'extension  constitue  I'essence  du  corps."  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  V,  p.  193,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X,  p.  147. 


14  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

tradiction.  This  identification  of  thinking  and  consciousness  explains 
his  assertion  that  we  always  think.'*^  Otherwise  he  would  have  to  con- 
clude that  consciousness  ceases  to  exist. '*^  In  fact,  he  says,  he  could 
more  easily  conceive  that  consciousness  ceases  to  exist  than  that 
consciousness  exists  when  we  do  not  think.^*^  The  "innate  idea,"  mis- 
represented in  the  history  of  philosophy,  is  nothing  but  the  natural 
capacity  of  our  thinking  faculty  to  form  such  ideas  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances.^^ His  discussion  of  the  formation  of  universals  in  the 
Principles  speaks  against  the  innateness  of  concepts.^^ 

Descartes's  cosmology  interfered  with  the  teachings  of  the  church 
and  theology.  The  "universe"  of  Aristotle  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  which 
suited  the  interests  of  the  church,  seems  to  be  preserved  by  Descartes 
in  name  only.  It  is  deprived  of  all  its  fundamental  characteristics. 
Its  limits  are  removed  and  the  world  is  made  infinitely  extended. 
According  to  the  traditional  teaching  of  theology  the  attribute  of 
infiniteness  belongs  to  God  only  and,  therefore,  the  world  can  not  be 
otherwise  than  limited.  Le  Monde  describes  the  world  as  moving  of 
itself  by  natural  laws,  while  the  traditional  theological  doctrine  holds 

<8  "Mais  il  me  semble  qu'il  est  necessaire  que  I'ame  pense  toujours  actuellement,  parce  que  la  pens^e 
constitue  son  essence,  ainsi  que  I'extension  constitue  I'essence  du  corps."     Ihid. 

*'  "La  raison  pour  laquelle  je  croi  que  I'ame  pense  toujours,  est  la  meme  qui  me  fait  croire  .  .  . 
que  ce  qui  constitue  la  nature  d'une  chose  est  toujours  en  elle,  pendant  qu'elle  existe;  en  sorte  qu'il  me 
serait  plus  aise  de  croire  que  I'ame  cesserait  d'exister,  quand  on  dit  qu'elle  cesse  de  penser,  que  non  pas  de 
concevoir  qu'elle  fiit  sans  pensee."    Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  478. 

'"  For  a  similar  reason  he  denied  a  soul  to  animals,  declaring:  "Je  ne  leur  refuse  pas  meme  le  senti- 
ment autant  qu'il  depend  des  organes  du  corps.  Ainsi  mon  opinion  n'est  pas  si  cruelle  aux  animaux 
qu'elle  est  favorable  aux  hommes."     Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  278,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X,  p.  208. 

51  "Lorsque  j'ai  dit  que  I'idee  de  Dieu  est  naturellement  en  nous,  je  n'ai  jamais  entendu  autre  chose, 
que  la  nature  a  mis  en  nous  une  faculle  par  laquelle  nous  pouvons  connailre  Dieu;  mais  je  n'ai  jamais  ecrit 
ni  pense  que  telles  idees  fussent  acluelles  ou  qu'elles  fussent  des  especes  distinctes  de  la  faculte  meme  que 
nous  avons  de  penser.  Et  meme  je  dirai  plus,  qu'il  n'y  a  personne  qui  soit  si  eloigne  que  moi  de  tout  ce 
fatras  d'entites  scholastiques;  .  .  .  Je  I'ai  nomme  naturelle,  mais  je  I'ai  dit  au  meme  sens  que  nous 
disons  que  la  generosite  ou  quelque  maladie  est  naturelle  a  certaines  families."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  X,  p. 
106,  Ed.  Cousin. 

"Selon  que  I'esprit  est  determine  par  soi-meme  ou  par  des  causes  etrangeres,  a  considerer  tel  ou  tel 
objet,  il  trouve  en  lui-meme  telle  ou  telle  autre  idee  de  ce  qu'il  considere."  Oeuvres  inedites  de  Descartes, 
Foucher  de  Careil,  1859,  p.  65. 

"Je  n'entends  pas  que  I'idee  de  Dieu  soit  en  nous  autrement  que  les  idees  de  toutes  les  verites  connues 
par  elles-memes,  je  n'entends  pas  qu'elles  soient  toujours  en  acte,  representees  dans  quelque  partie 
du  cerveau,  comme  des  vers  se  trouvent  dans  un  manuscrit  de  Virgile,  mais  elles  y  sont  seulement  en 
puissance  comme  diverses  figures  dans  un  morceau  de  cire."    Foucher  de  Careil,  Op.  Cil.,  p.  63. 

52  "Quels  sont  les  universaux.  Qui  se  font  de  cela  seul  que  nous  nous  servons  d'une  meme  idee  pour 
penser  a  plusieurs  choses  particulieres  qui  ont  entre  elles  un  certain  rapport.  Et  lorsque  nous  com- 
prenons  sous  un  meme  nom  les  choses  qui  sont  representees  par  cette  idee,  ce  nom  aussi  est  universel.  Par 
exemple,  quand  nous  voyons  deux  pierres,  et  que,  sans  penser  autrement  a  ce  qui  est  de  leur  nature, 
nous  remarquons  seulement  qu'il  y  en  a  deux,  nous  formons  en  nous  I'idee  d'un  certain  nombre  que  nous 
nommons  le  nombre  deux.  Si,  voyant  ensuite  deux  oiseaux  ou  deux  arbres,  nous  remarquons,  sans  penser 
aussi  a  ce  qui  est  de  leur  nature,  qu'il  y  en  a  deux,  nous  reprenons  par  ce  moyen  la  meme  idee  que  nous 
avions  auparavant  formee,  et  la  rendons  universelle,  et  le  nombre  aussi  que  nous  nommons  d'un  nom 
universel,  le  nombre  deux.  De  meme,  lorsque  nous  considerons  une  figure  de  trois  cotes,  nous  formons 
une  certaine  idee,  que  nous  nommons  I'idee  du  triangle,  et  nous  en  servons  ensuite  a  nous  representer 
geniralement  toutes  les  figures  qui  n'ont  que  trois  cotes,  etc."  Principes,  Part  I,  Section  59,  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  IX. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  I5 

the  extra-mundane  God  as  the  moving  cause  of  the  world.  Mechanical 
laws  exclude  final  causes,  which,  Descartes  found,  do  not  help  us  to 
understand  nature.  The  opposition  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
which  is  part  of  the  theological  conception  of  the  universe  is  nullified 
in  Descartes's  system,  where  the  Copernican  theory  is  practically 
admitted.  Descartes  places  the  earth  among  the  stars  and  lets  it 
move  around  the  sun  during  the  year  and  around  its  own  axis  to  form 
the  day.^*  This  scheme  is  rejected  by  the  Roman  hierarchy  whose 
teachings  seemed  to  lose  their  force  if  the  world  ceased  to  be  a  geo- 
centric system.  If  the  earth  is  at  the  center,  man's  position  is  most 
remote  from  God,  who  abides  beyond  the  outer  sphere  of  the  universe, 
and,  therefore,  man  is  in  a  place  which  is  most  degraded,  for  the  uni- 
verse becomes  gradually  better  as  it  approaches  the  sphere  of  God's 
habitation.  The  church  exists  to  rescue  man  from  his  helpless  position 
and  to  bring  his  soul  nearer  to  God.  But  if  the  earth  is  among  the 
stars,  as  is  held  by  Descartes,  man  is  too  near  to  heaven  to  need  the 
mediation  of  the  church  for  his  salvation.  This  may,  of  course,  be  for 
the  church  a  very  good  reason  for  putting  the  earth  at  the  center,  but 
Descartes  in  his  study  of  nature  looked  for  no  other  than  astronomical 
justification  for  placing  the  earth,  and  he  found  no  instance  which 
would  support  its  immobility.  He  even  expressed  his  regret  for  those 
who,  trying  to  make  the  geocentric  system  an  article  of  faith,  have  no 
stronger  reasons  to  support  this  doctrine  than  those  advanced  by  its 
adherents. ^^  He  found  more  convincing  the  observations  related  in 
Galileo's  book,  observations  which  deprive  the  sun  of  its  movement. 
Moreover,  Descartes's  system  brings  heaven  and  earth  down  to  one 
level.  According  to  this  theory  the  heavenly  bodies,  just  as  the 
earthly,  gradually  arose  by  purely  mechanical  laws.  There  is  no 
heavenly  element  in  Descartes's  system — both  the  celestial  and  the 
terrestrial  spheres  are  formed  from  one  and  the  same  kind  of  matter  to 
which  they  can  be  reduced  again.  The  vortex  theory  is  applied  also 
to  the  celestial  sphere,  which  is  found  to  consist  of  many  heavens. 

His  suggestion  of  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  many  earths  con- 
flicted with  the  doctrine  of  redemption  according  to  which  Christ  was 
incarnated  only  on  one  earth. ^^ 

Descartes's  idea  of  the  basis  of  morality  which  grew  out  of  his  view 
of  man  and  nature  overthrew  traditional  ethics.  His  belief  in  the  equal 
distribution  of  reason  among  all  men  led  him  to  the  fundamental 

s'Le  Monde,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  XI,  p.  81. 

^*  "J'ai  compassion  avec  vous  de  cet  auteur  qui  se  sert  de  raisons  astrologiques  pour  prouver  I'immo- 
bilite  de  la  Terre;  mais  j'aurais  encore  plus  de  compassion  du  siecle,  si  je  pensais  que  ceux  qui  ont  voulu 
faire  un  article  de  foi  de  cette  opinion,  n'eussent  point  de  plus  fortes  raisons  pour  la  sofltenir."  Oeuvres 
Vol.  I,  p.  258. 

66  Abbot  Terrason,  Traiti  de  I'Infini,  1750.    {Philosophical  Review,  1905.) 


l6  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

precept,  "all  that  is  necessary  to  right  action  is  right  judgment." 
This  setting  of  morality  left  no  room  for  any  authoritative  sanction, 
either  divine  or  human — the  basis  of  traditional  ethics.  With  this 
rule  at  the  basis,  morality  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  authority 
and  became  the  private  business  of  every  individual.  Every  one  is 
master  over  his  own  conduct  in  so  far  as  he  has  to  obey  his  own  reason 
only.  The  problem  of  vice  and  virtue,  a  vital  problem  of  traditional 
ethics,  was  reduced  to  the  question  of  knowledge  and  ignorance.  If 
all  that  is  necessary  for  right  action  is  right  judgment,  the  problem  of 
morality  centers  around  the  question  of  how  to  reach  right  judgment  in 
all  matters  and  on  all  occasions.  According  to  Descartes  no  right  judg- 
ment is  possible  without  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  particular 
case  in  question;  it  requires  knowledge  of  what  we  judge.  All  vice, 
according  to  him,  comes  from  weakness  which  follows  from  ignorance; 
all  virtue,  from  the  firm  resolution  to  do  the  thing  that  one  considers 
to  be  best  after  a  close  examination  of  the  case  in  question,  and  to 
employ  all  one's  power  of  mind  to  know  what  is  best.^®  There  is  no 
fixed  good;  it  has  to  be  determined  by  individual  judgment  in  every 
particular  case.  What  is  good  at  one  time  and  one  place  may  not  be  so 
at  another  time  and  at  another  place.  It  is  contrary  to  reason  to  hold  a 
thing  as  always  good,  because  it  proved  to  be  so  once.  This  conflicted 
with  Christian  teaching,  according  to  which,  as  was  objected,  the  good 
is  determined  by  the  authority  of  God.  The  question  of  right  and 
wrong  in  the  pursuit  of  good  and  evil  Descartes  considered  to  be  a 
theological  question  which,  therefore,  had  no  place  in  his  natural 
philosophy. ^^ 

Descartes's  conception  of  error  left  no  room  for  the  traditional 
problem  of  the  origin  of  sin,  like  the  Augustinian  problem,  for  instance, 
where  particular  sins  are  explained  by  the  original  sin  of  mankind, 
whose  salvation  can  be  brought  about  by  the  help  of  the  church.  To 
Descartes  every  particular  sin  is  original  for  itself,  and  its  origin  is 
the  ignorance  of  the  individual.  Salvation  from  sin  can  be  brought 
about  not  by  grace  and  through  the  church,  but  by  knowledge  only. 
Everybody  wants  the  good,  but  not  everybody  knows  how  to  obtain  it. 
Morality  presupposes  the  knowledge  of  other  sciences.  The  cultiva- 
tion of  the  natural  reasoning  capacity  and  knowledge  of  nature  are 
the  two  prerequisites  for  rightness  in  conduct.  For  man,  being  part 
of  nature  and  living  in  a  mechanical  world,  can  maintain  the  integrity 
of  his  existence  only  by  being  able  to  utilize  the  world  for  his  benefit. 

•6  Corr..  Vol.  V.  p.  83. 

''  "Le  bien  faire  dont  je  parle  ne  se  peut  entendre  en  termes  de  Theologie,  ou  il  est  parle  de  la  Grace, 
mais  seulement  de  Philosophie  morale  et  naturelle,  ou  cette  Grace  n'est  point  consideree."  Oeuvres, 
Vol.  I,  p.  366. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  I7 

Descartes's  interpretation  of  right  and  wrong  action  avoided  also  the 
traditional  problem  of  freedom.  As  a  logical  consequence  of  his  funda- 
mental proposition  of  morality,  evil  is  not  a  necessary  part  of  the  world 
and,  therefore,  the  traditional  problem  of  legitimatizing  evil  is  excluded. 

His  physics  undermined  the  theory  of  the  Eucharist.  In  the  con- 
struction of  his  system  of  physics  his  only  concern  was  as  far  as  possible 
adherence  to  facts  and  a  most  intelligible  explanation  of  nature.  As 
a  result,  it  conflicted  with  an  important  doctrine  of  the  church.  His 
theories  of  accidents  and  extension  followed  out  logically  undermined 
completely  the  theory  of  the  Eucharist.  If,  according  to  Descartes, 
accidents  have  no  separate  and  independent  existence,  how  do  the 
accidents  of  the  bread  and  wine  remain  during  the  sacrament  when  the 
bread  is  no  longer  there  and  another  body  is  in  its  place?  Despite 
the  objections  made,  he  persistently  asserted  that  the  independent 
existence  of  real  accidents  is  incredible  and  unintelligible.  It  seemed 
to  him  a  contradiction  to  say  that  the  accidents  of  the  wine  and 
bread  remained  while  the  wine  and  the  bread  changed  into  another 
substance.  For  if  all  accidents  remained,  what  was  it  that  changed,  he 
asked.  He  was  quite  confident  that  even  all  theologians  would  have 
to  agree  with  him  that  nothing  of  that  which  we  perceive  by  the  senses 
has  changed,  "car  il  est  certain  que  la  diversite  des  noms  qu'on  leur 
a  donnes  (to  the  different  objects) ,  ne  vient  que  de  ce  qu'on  a  remarque 
en  elles  diverses  proprietes  qui  tombent  sous  les  sens."  ^^  He  even  went 
so  far  as  to  express  hope  that  a  time  would  come  when  even  all  theo- 
logians would  reject  the  existence  of  real  accidents  as  of  little  certainty 
even  in  matters  of  belief  and  as  repugnant  to  reason,  and  that  his 
theory  would  be  accepted  instead.  He  neither  rejected  his  principles 
nor  did  he  want  to  attempt  a  reconciliation  of  them  with  the  mysteries 
of  the  Eucharist. 

Another  difificulty  with  respect  to  the  theory  of  the  Eucharist  arose 
because  Descartes  sometimes  appeared  to  identify  matter  with  exten- 
sion. If  matter  and  extension  are  identical,  how  can  the  body  of  Christ 
be  present  in  the  dimensions  of  the  bread?  Descartes  saw  these  difficul- 
ties only  when  his  attention  was  called  to  the  fact  that  his  principles 
of  physics  exposed  the  theory  of  the  Eucharist  to  great  "danger". 


Despite  the  fact  that  Descartes  "revered  theology,  and  aspired  as 
much  as  any  one  to  reach  heaven"  he  was  anxious  to  avoid  whatever 
was  based  on  divine  revelation.    He  says  he  preferred  rather  to  keep 

ss  Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  37S. 


l8  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

silence  concerning  such  points,  wanting  neither  to  accept  what  was 
advanced  by  the  Scholastics  or  Aristotle  nor  to  advance  anything 
contrary  to  the  decisions  of  faith.  His  decision  at  the  outset  was  not  to 
treat  any  theological  questions  under  the  pretext  that  reason  is 
impotent  to  penetrate  matters  of  faith.  Whatever  is  subject  to  revela- 
tion had  according  to  him  no  place  in  philosophy,  whose  business  he 
held  it  was  properly  to  investigate  only  things  of  which  we  can  obtain 
a  clear  and  distinct  knowledge;  it  is  vain  labor  to  examine  things 
which  are  beyond  our  comprehension.^^  He  drew  a  sharp  line  of  dis- 
tinction between  reason  and  faith.  He  held  that  what  can  be  taken  on 
faith  is  not  always  acceptable  to  reason.  When,  against  his  theory  of 
the  gradual  development  of  the  world  by  mechanical  laws,  it  was 
objected  that  the  world  had  existed  in  its  present  state  since  the  very 
creation,  he  was  willing  to  accept  this  latter  view  on  faith,  as  he  said, 
but  not  by  reason.  His  conviction  was  that  questions  of  faith  can  not 
be  demonstrated  by  reason  and  that  to  attempt  to  demonstrate  them 
by  reason  is  to  do  them  injustice. 

Descartes  was  strongly  opposed  to  mixing  religion  with  philosophy. 
He  grew  indignant  and  did  not  finish  a  book  which  was  sent  to  him  by 
Mersenne,  as  he  explained,  "parce  qu'il  me  semblait  ensuite  qu'il 
melait  la  Religion  avec  la  Philosophic,  et . . .  cela  est  entierement  contre 
mon  sens."^"  He  endeavored  to  eliminate  problems  of  orthodox  meta- 
physics from  his  philosophy. ''i  His  proposition  not  to  accept  anything 
as  true  unless  it  was  clearly  seen  to  be  so  was  hardly  favorable  to  the 
interpretation  of  mysteries.  He  refused  to  say  anything  concerning 
the  questions  of  the  compatibility  of  God's  omnipotence  and  of  pre- 
destination with  man's  freedom,  or  anything  concerning  the  question 
whether  God  always  made  what  he  knew  to  be  perfect,  when  these 
questions  were  proposed  to  him  by  the  Princess  Elizabeth.  A  finite 
spirit,  he  asserted,  can  not  get  at  the  bottom  of  infinite  things.  No 
considerations  could  make  him  undertake  an  investigation  of  the 
mysteries  of  grace,  of  the  trinity,  or  of  incarnation.  He  was  anxious 
not  to  let  any  theology  slip  into  his  writing,  as  he  explained  .  .  .  "je 
m'abstiens,  le  plus  qu'il  m'est  possible,  des  questions  de  Theologie 
.  .  .  ".^2  He  even  avoided  a  definite  answer  when  his  attention  was 
called  to  the  fact  that  certain  points  of  his  philosophy  conflicted  with 
theology.  All  the  objections  against  his  view  of  the  occult  qualities 
and  his  theory  of  extension  which  conflicted  with  the  theory  of  the 


^oOeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  570. 

"  "J'ai  toujours  excepte  les  choses  qui  regardent  la  foi  et  les  actions  de  notre  vie,  lorsque  j'ai  dit  que 
nous  ne  devons  donner  creance  qu'aux  choses  que  nous  connaissons  evidemment."  Objections  el 
Reponses.  Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  77,  Ed.  Cousin. 

62  Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  119. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  IQ 

Eucharist  did  not  make  him  attempt  at  once  a  reconciHation  of  his 
teachings  with  matters  of  belief.  He  was  very  unwilling  to  enter 
upon  a  consideration  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  on  the  basis  of 
his  theory.  Only  when  Arnauld  objected  in  the  name  of  the  Scholastic 
theologians  and  asked  him  how  he  would  reconcile  his  teaching  of 
extension  with  that  of  the  Eucharist,  he  says,  he  could  no  longer 
remain  silent. ^^  He  finally  ventured  an  explanation  of  the  doctrine  in 
such  a  way,  he  says,  as  would  be  suited  to  avoiding  the  calumnies  of 
the  heretics  who  find  it  incomprehensible  and  full  of  contradictions. 

RESUME 

To  summarize,  Descartes  set  out  on  his  philosophical  career  as 
a  naturalist,  keeping  strictly  away  from  whatever  had  a  supernatural 
tinge.  His  problems  were  problems  of  life  and  his  method  experimen- 
tation, as  much  as  was  within  his  reach,  and  hypotheses  based  on 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  day  and  on  mathematical  reasoning. 

^  Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  190,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin,  Vol.  X,  p.  143.  Letlres,  Vol.  I,  p.  32s,  Ed.  Clerselier. 


CHAPTER  III 

CONSERVATION  OF  TRADITIONS  DESPITE 
PROGRESSIVE  IDEAS 


Despite  the  fact  that  Descartes  had  set  out  on  a  new  path,  that  of 
naturalism,  his  later  works,  the  Discourse,'^  the  Meditations,^  and  the 
Principles  ^  surprise  us  with  their  reaction.  Both  in  subject-matter  and 
in  method  he  fell  back  into  the  error  of  his  predecessors  against  whom 
he  had  arisen.  He  tells  us  in  the  Discourse  that  in  "pulling  down  an 
old  house,  we  usually  preserve  the  ruins  to  contribute  to  the  erection 
of  the  new,"  but  Descartes  preserved  even  more  than  the  ruins — a 
surprising  outcome  in  view  of  his  preparation  for  the  new  structure 
and  his  first  attempt  at  construction.  Having  first  studied  his  earliest 
works  where  the  world  and  life  are  represented  as  going  on  according 
to  natural  laws  only,  independent  of  all  supernatural  powers,  and 
where  facts  are  the  criterion  of  truth,  we  are  surprised  to  find  in  his 
later  works  that  his  physics  and  the  very  existence  of  the  world  are 
made  dependent  on  the  existence  of  a  Perfect  Being;  that  the  principle 
of  definition  is  to  take  the  place  of  facts  in  the  derivation  and  verifica- 
tion of  truth  about  the  material  world,  and  that  the  senses,  which 
were  the  most  reliable  sources  of  information  in  the  study  of  nature, 
are  doubted.  He  thus  returned  to  authority  and  tradition  discarded  | 
by  him  at  the  outset. 

The  Cogito  ergo  sum,  which  is  so  glorified  in  the  histories  of  phil- 
osophy as  the  most  original  idea  of  Descartes,  is  also  nothing  but  a 
medieval  tradition,  and  is  not  the  thing  for  which  Descartes  is  to  be 
given  an  immortal  place  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  We  find  the 
same  in  St.  Augustine,  who  in  the  state  of  doubt  also  takes  his  own 
existence  as  the  safest  starting-point.  Si  jailor,  sum.  The  anticipation 
of  Descartes's  principle  was  pointed  out  by  Arnauld  in  the  second 
Objection,  where  he  quotes  the  corresponding  words  of  both  philoso- 
phers on  that  point.^  St.  Augustine  lets  Alipius,  in  disputing  with 
Evodius  concerning  the  existence  of  God,  say:  "  Premierement,  je  vous 

1  Discours  de  la  Methode  (first  appeared  in  French,  1637). 

2  Miditalions  (first  appeared  in  Latin,  1641). 
'  Principes  (first  appeared  in  Latin,  1644). 
^Objections  el  Reponses,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  154. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       21 

demande,  afin  que  nous  commencions  par  les  choses  les  plus  mani- 
festes,  savoir  si  vous  etes,  ou  si  peut-etre  vous  ne  craignez  point  de 
vous  meprendre  en  repondant  a  ma  demande,  combien  qu'a  vrai  dire 
si  vous  n'etiez  point,  vous  ne  pourriez  jamais  etre  trompe."  Instead 
of  this  Descartes  says:  "Mais  il  y  a  un  je  ne  sais  quel  trompeur  tres 
puissant  et  tres  ruse,  qui  met  toute  son  industrie  a  me  tromper  toujours. 
II  est  done  sans  doute  que  je  suis,  s'il  me  trompe." 

In  the  same  Objection  Arnauld  has  pointed  out  Descartes's  like- 
ness to  St.  Augustine  in  the  problem  of  the  Meditations  and  the  Prin- 
ciples, wherein  Descartes  tries  to  show  that  the  soul  is  more  clearly 
perceived  than  the  body;  similarly  St.  Augustine  in  the  De  quantit. 
animcB  rejects  as  false  the  opinion  that  the  perceptions  of  the  soul  are 
less  clear  than  those  of  the  senses. 


The  traditional  problems  of  God  and  the  soul  are  given  a  prominent 
place  by  Descartes.  The  treatment  of  these  problems  is  supposed  to 
justify  .the  fame  attributed  to  Descartes  by  posterity.  It  does  not  dis- 
play, however,  any  of  his  originality  or  ingenuity.  He  himself  con- 
fesses that  he  made  use  of  the  demonstrations  of  others  in  his  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  God  and  the  soul,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  discover  new  ones.^ 

His  arguments  concerning  God  represent,  in  fact,  a  mixture  of 
theology  and  traditional  philosophy.  God  is  endowed  with  all  the 
attributes  ascribed  to  him  by  theology.  He  is  one  and  eternal;  He 
has  existed  from  all  eternity  and  will  exist  to  all  eternity;  He  is  all- 
knowing,  all  powerful,  and  is  the  creator  and  director  of  all  things.^ 
(What  treason  to  his  Le  Monde!)  Descartes  does  not  even  pretend  to 
have  said  concerning  God  anything  more  than  the  theologians  did^ 
to  quote  his  own  words:  "  Je  n'ai  rien  dit  touchant  la  connaissance  de 
Dieu,  que  tous  les  Theologiens  ne  disent  aussi."  ^ 

The  various  arguments  which  Descartes  uses  to  prove  God's  exis-  ] 
tence  go  back  to  St.  Augustine.     They  are  either  a  restatement  or  a 
variation  of  the  latter's  ontological  argument.     Though  from  the  point 

5  "Presque  toutes  les  raisons  qui  ont  ete  apportees  par  tant  de  grands  personnages,  touchant  ces  deux 
questions,  sont  autant  de  demonstrations,  quand  elles  sont  bien  entendues,  qu'il  soit  presque  impossible 
d'en  inventer  de  nouvelles:  si  est-ce  que  je  crois  qu'on  ne  surait  rien  faire  de  plus  utile  en  la  Philosophie, 
que  d'en  rechercher  une  fois  curieusement  et  avec  soin  les  meilleures  et  les  plus  solides,  et  les  disposer 
en  un  ordre  si  clair  et  si  exact,  qu'il  soit  constant  desormais  a  tout  le  monde,  que  ce  sont  de  veritables 
demonstrations."    Meditations,  Epitre,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  5. 

'  "Je  concois  un  Dieu  souverain,  eternel,  infini,  immuable,  tout  connaissant,  tout  puissant  et  Createur 
universel  de  toutes  les  choses  qui  sont  hors  de  lui  .     .     .  "    Meditations,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  32. 

.  .  Je  vois  clairement  qu'il  est  necessaire  qu'il  ait  ete  auparavant  de  toute  eternite,  et  qu'il  soit 
etemellement  a  I'avenir."    Ibid. 

'  Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  544. 


22  METAPHYSICS     OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

of  view  of  logic  an  improvement  upon  St.  Augustine,  they  are  all, 
however,  equally  unsuccessful.  In  his  arguments  he  involves  himself 
Jn  a  circular,  reasoning,  as  was  first  pointed  out  by  Arnauld.  With 
regard  to  Descartes's  proof  of  God  by  the  clear  and  distinct  idea  of 
Him,  Arnauld  presents  the  following  passage  in  the  Objections.  "II  ne 
me  reste  plus  qu'un  scrupule,  qui  est  de  savoir  comment  il  se  pent 
defendre  de  ne  pas  commettre  un  cercle,  lorsqu'il  dit  que  'nous  ne 
sommes  assures  que  les  choses  que  nous  concevons  clairement  et  dis- 
tinctement  sont  vraies,  qu'a  cause  que  Dieu  est  ou  existe'.  Car 
nous  ne  pouvons  etre  assures  que  Dieu  est  sinon  parce  que  nous  con- 
cevons cela  tres  clairement  et  tres  distinctement  .     .     .  "  ^ 

This  circular  reasoning  Descartes  repeats  again  and  again.  In  the 
Meditations  we  find  even  in  one  and  the  same  passage  the  two  following 
expressions:  "  Au  reste,  de  quelque  preuve  et  argument  que  je  me  serve 
(to  prove  God's  existence),  il  en  faut  toujours  revenir  la,  qu'il  n'y  a  que 
les  choses  que  je  congois  clairement  et  distinctement,  qui  aient  la  force 
de  me  persuader  entierement"  and  "  .  .  .  Je  remarque  que  la 
certitude  de  toute  les  autres  choses  en  depend  (upon  the  truth  of 
God's  existence)  si  absolument,  que  sans  cette  connaissance  il  est 
impossible  de  pouvoir  jamais  rien  savoir  parfaitement."  ^ 

-^  A  similar  circular  reasoning  was  pointed  out  by  Arnauld  in  Des- 
cartes's proof  from  causality.  Arnauld  correctly  saw  that  Descartes 
first  used  his  own  existence  as  a  premise  for  the  derivation  of  God's 
existence  and  then  God's  existence  to  explain  his  own  existence.^" 

Moreover,  his  arguments  do  not  give  us  any  empirical  ground  of 
assurance  of  the  universal  existence  of  the  innate  idea,  which  is  the 
main  point  on  which  the  certainty  of  the  whole  proof  depends,  and 

'  even  less  assurance  of  the  existence  which  they  seek  to  prove.  The 
idea  of  the  perfect  is  merely  an  idea  and  may  have  no  metaphysical 
significance. 

Descartes  is  not  more  successful  in  his  demonstrations  of  the  exis- 

vjence  of  the  soul.  In  his  treatment  of  the  problem  of  the  soul  there 
lurks  a  mixture  of  accepted  beliefs  concerning  the  soul  and  of  his  own 
radical  conceptions.     He  is  wavering  between  the  two,  trying  to  do 

/justice  to  the  old  and  not  too  much  injustice  to  his  own.  The  problem 
of  the  soul  is  taken  up  in  the  form  of  a  demonstration  of  the  distinction 
between  soul  and  body.  If  the  arguments  dealing  with  the  soul  are 
supposed  to  be  demonstrations  of  the  soul's  immortality,  as  they  are 

^Objections  et  Reponses,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  29,  Ed.  Cousin. 

'  Meditations,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  pp.  54  and  55. 

">  "Et  toute  la  force  de  I'argument  dont  j'ai  ici  use  pour  prouver  I'existence  de  Dieu,  consiste  en  ce 
que  je  reconnais  qu'il  ne  seiait  pas  possible  que  ma  nature  fdt  telle  qu'elle  est,  c'est  a  dire  que  j'eusse 
en  moi  I'idee  d'un  Dieu,  si  Dieu  n'existait  veritablement."    Meditations,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  41. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  23 

taken  to  be  by  some,  or  as  even  the  original  title  of  the  Meditations 
suggests,"  they  are  complete  failures.  But  Descartes  does  not  even 
pretend  to  have  attempted  to  prove  the  soul's  immortality.  When 
Mersenne  pointed  to  the  fact  that  there  is  in  the  Meditations  no  word 
concerning  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  Descartes  answered  that  there 
was  nothing  surprising  about  that,  for  he  could  not  at  all  prove  that 
God  could  not  destroy  the  soul  after  death. ^^  He  then  asked  Mersenne 
to  change  the  title  of  the  Meditations  from  In  qua  Dei  existentia  et 
animcB  imniortalitas  demonstratur,  to  In  quihiis  Dei  existentia  et  animce 
humancB  a  corpore  distinctio  demonstratur.  In  a  letter  written  to  Igby 
he  says  that  he  does  not  know  anything  concerning  the  soul  after  death 
and,  therefore,  kept  silent  on  this  point. 

Where  he  is  said  to  deal  with  the  immortality  of  the  soul  his  main 
concern  is,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  to  point  out  the  distinction  between 
mind  and  body.  Whenever  he  pretends  to  speak  of  the  soul  he  speaks 
of  the  mind  or  consciousness,  evidently  identifying  the  soul  with  the 
mind.  Mind  according  to  him  is  thinking  itself,^'  and  he  emphasizes,, 
the  fact  that  it  is  distinct  from  the  body.  Undoubtedly,  mind  or  think- 
ing is  not  body,  but  even  if  we  know  that  thinking  is  distinct  from  body 
what  else  do  we  know  of  the  nature  of  the  mind?  If  thinking,  or  mind, 
is  distinct  from,  body,  thinking,  or  mind,  is  distinct  from  body;  this 
does  not,  however,  suggest  any  other  property  of  the  mind.  Descartes, 
however,  says  in  the  Discourse  that  he  draws  from  this  the  conclusion" 
that  consciousness  or  thinking  is  a  substance,  which  in  the  Cartesian 
language  means  an  indestructible  and  an  eternal  being  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  body  and  of  the  material  world.  How  Descartes  by 
unbiassed  reasoning  could  ever  have  come  to  this  conclusion  is  in- 
comprehensible, particularly,  if  we  take  into  consideration  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  genius  in  mathematics,  which  means:  a  perfect 
logician. 

The  logic  of  the  proofs  of  the  soul's  immortality  did  not  seem  to 
satisfy  the  religious  mind  more  than  it  did  the  scientific  one  Arnauld 
questions  the  legitimacy  of  the  conclusion  of  the  soul's  immortality 
on  the  ground  of  the  distinction  between  soul  and  body,  for  according 

"  Renati  Descartes,  Medilationes  de  Prima  Philosophia.  In  qua  Dei  existentia  et  animae  immor- 
talitas  demonstratur. 

■2  "Pour  ce  que  vous  dites,  que  je  n'ai  pas  rnis  un  mot  de  I'lmmortalite  de  1' Ame,  vous  ne  vous  en  devez 
pas  etonner;  car  je  ne  saurais  pas  demontrer  que  Dieu  ne  la  puisse  annihiler,  mais  seulement  qu'elle 
est  d'une  nature  entierement  distincte  de  celle  du  corps."    Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  26s. 

'5  "La  pensee  n'est  pas  congue  comme  un  attribut  qui  peut-etre  joint  ou  separe  de  la  chose  qui  pense, 
ainsi  que  Ton  congoit  dans  le  corps  la  division  des  parties,  ou  le  mouvement." 

"La  pensee  constitue  son  essence,  ainsi  que  I'extension  constitue,  I'essence  du  corps."  Oeuvres,  Vol. 
X,  p.  147,  Ed.  Cousin;  Adams  and  Tannery  Edition,  Vol.  V,  p.  193,  Latin. 

"La  pensee,  ou  la  nature  qui  pense,  dans  laquelle  je  crois  que  consiste  I'essence  de  I'esprit  humain." 
Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  221. 


24  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

tb  the  principles  of  the  school  the  souls  of  animals  are  distinct  from 
their  bodies  and  are,  nevertheless,  supposed  to  perish  with  them.^* 

Aside  from  the  fact  that  the  arguments  for  the  distinction  between 
mind  and  body  do  not  give  us  the  conclusion  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  and  are  failures  from  the  point  of  view  of  logic,  they  do  far  less 
give  us  the  assurance  of  the  actual  independent  existence  of  the  soul. 
TChis,  however,  even  the  best  logic  could  not  do. 

In  Descartes's  arguments  concerning  the  existence  both  of  the  soul 
and  of  God  there  is  no  trace  of  any  empirical  investigation.  The 
problems  of  the  Meditations  and  part  of  the  Principles  and  of  the 
Discourse  are,  on  the  contrary,  built  on  traditional  material  imparted 
to  him  from  childhood  through  education,  despite  his  earnest  desire 
at  the  start  to  make  his  philosophical,  scientific  pursuits  with  a  mind 
as  a  "tabula  rasa"  and  to  lean  on  experience  as  main  support  for  his 
V  philosophical  conclusions. 

Nor  is  there  any  attempt  whatsoever  at  historical  research.  He 
did  not  let  himself  be  misled  by  such  questions  as  whether  the  idea  of 
God  was  really  innate  in  all  men  at  all  times  and  all  places.  He  was 
not  in  the  least  concerned  to  find  out  the  fact  that  there  are  savages 
who  are  wholly  ignorant  of  such  pious  ideas.  Neither  was  he  informed 
of  such  scientific  experiments  as  were  performed  later  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  which  revealed,  for  instance,  that  a  woman,  who  having 
been  deaf  and  dumb  all  her  life,  had  no  idea  of  a  God  when  her  Acuities 
Y"were  restored.  Descartes  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  idea  o"f  the 
[.  Perfect  Being  is  universally  innate  and  goes  on  to  construct  on  its  basis 
arguments  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  God  quite  undeterred  by  the 
fact  that  in  so  doing  he  begs  the  question.  There  is  another  begging 
of  the  question  in  the  argument  for  God's  existence  by  taking  it  for 
granted  that  the  idea  of  God  is  a  perfect  idea. 

The  same  mistake  he  commits  in  his  proof  of  the  existence  of  the 
soul  by  taking  it  for  granted  that  consciousness  exists  independent  of 
— Vthe  body  and  of  the  material  world.  In  his  Meditations  he  reasons 
away  his*  body  and  the  material  world  and  finds  that  he  is  still  con- 
scious. It  is  a  question  whether  there  would  be  obtained  the  same 
results  were  they  actually  taken  away.  But,  as  above  pointed  out,  he 
/avoids  empirical  investigations  on  these  questions. 

If  Descartes's  demonstrations  we're  intended,  as  he  tells  us,  to  con- 
quer non-believers  by  making  matters  of  faith  more  intelligible  to  them, 
he  failed  in  his  purpose.  Descartes's  demonstrations  are  too  weak  to 
mnvert  non-believers  and  despite  his  demonstrations  even  believers  will 
have,  just  as  before,  to  repeat  with  St.  Anselm  "Credo  ut  intelligam." 

^^  Objections  et  Reponses,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  159. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       25 

Descartes  himself  saw  the  obscurity  of  his  demonstrations  of  the 
existence  of  God  and  of  the  soul.  He  justifies  the  failure  of  his  demon- 
strations of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  by  the  fact  that  he  had  never 
intended  to  prove  the  soul's  immortality.  All  he  proposed  to  do,  in 
order  to  comply  with  the  demands  of  religion,  was  to  prove  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  soul  and  the  body.^^  He,  therefore,  did  not  say 
anything  concerning  the  fact  that  the  soul,  being  in  union  with  the 
body,  may  act  with  it  and  part  with  it.^^ 

As  to  the  demonstrations  of  the  existence  of  God,  he  admits  their  \ 
awkwardness  and  confesses  his  mistake  in  supposing  that  things  which 
had  become  clear  to  him  only  through  habit  of  thinking  them  in  a 
certain  way  would  appear  as  clear  to  others.  He  advances  various 
reasons  to  excuse  the  failure  of  his  demonstrations.  In  the  Discourse 
he  could  not  adequately  enough  elaborate  the  arguments  for  God's 
existence  on  account  of  lack  of  time,  for  he  had  not  decided  to  treat 
this  subject  until  the  very  last  moment  before  publication  and,  there- 
fore, was  hurried  by  the  publisher. ^'^  Another  reason,  which  he  con- 
siders the  main  one,  is  the  fact  that  he  refrained  from  considering  the 
reasonings  of  the  skeptics  on  this  point  and  did  not  say  all  the  things 
that  were  necessary  "a(Z  abducendam  mentem  a  sensibus."  ^^  Moreover, 
,  he  says  that  his  demonstrations  concerning  the  existence  of  God  are 
intelligible  only  if  one  understands  his  reasonings  concerning  the  incer- 
titude of  our  cognition  of  the  material  world  if  there  is  no  God.  This 
reasoning,  it  seems  to  me,  nobody  understands.  He  did  not  wanlv^ 
however,  to  include  these  arguments  in  a  book  which  he  intended  for 
everybody,  even  for  women.  But  did  these  arguments,  which  were 
sufficiently  worked  up  in  his  later  work,  the  Meditations,  throw 
much  light  on  the  question  of  God's  existence,  or  rather  more 
obscure  it? 

Are  the  reasons  advanced  by  Descartes  actually  the  reasons  for  his 
failure?  Does  the  mistake  lie  only  in  the  negligible  treatment  of  the 
problems?  Was  it  not  rather  on  one  hand  the  general  defect  of  his 
method  and  on  the  other  the  neglect  to  consider  whether  the  failure 

^5  "L'une  desquelles  (one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  soul)  est  qu'elle  pense,  I'autre,  qu'etant  unie 
au  corps,  elle  peut  agir  et  partir  avec  lui;  je  n'ai  quasi  rien  dit  de  cette  derniere,  et  me  suis  seulement 
etudie  a  faire  bien  entendre  la  premiere,  a  cause  que  mon  principal  dessein  etait  de  prouver  la  distinction 
qui  est  entre  I'ame  et  le  corps;  a  quoi  celle-ci  seulement  a  pu  servir,  et  I'autre  y  aurait  ete  nuisible." 
Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  664. 

''  "Je  ne  saurais  pas  demontrer  que  Dieu  ne  la  puisse  annihiler,  mais  seulement  qu'elle  est  d'une 
nature  entierement  distincte  de  celle  du  corps,  et  par  consequent  qu'elle  n'est  point  naturelleraent 
sujette  a  mourir  avec  lui,  qui  est  tout  ce  qui  est  requis  pour  6tablir  la  Religion;  et  c'est  aussi  tout  ce  que 
je  me  suis  propose  de  prouver."    Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  266. 

"  II  est  vrai  que  j'ai  et€  trop  obscur  en  ce  que  j'ai  6crit  de  I'existence  de  Dieu  dans  ce  traite  de  la 
Methode  .  .  .  Ce  .  .  .  vient  en  partie  de  ce  que  je  ne  me  suis  resolu  de  I'y  joindre  que  sur  la  fin, 
et  lorsque  le  Libraire  me  pressait."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  I,  p.  360. 

i8/</.,  Vol.  I,  p.  s6o. 


26  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

of  his  predecessors  to  solve  these  problems  lay  in  the  defect  of  the  syllo- 
gistic method  only  or  in  the  nature  of  the  problems  themselves? 
'■'^  Discontented  with  the  scholastic  method  of  inquiry  which  led  to 
knowledge  that  lacked  complete  certainty,  Descartes  looked  for 
another  to  give  him  the  certainty  of  mathematics  in  all  branches  of 
knowledge.  He,  therefore,  built  a  new  method  on  the  principles  of 
mathematics.  The  result  is  that  his  method  displays  all  its  excellence 
when  applied  to  mathematics,  as  is  exemplified  in  the  essay,  Geometry, 
where,  he  says,  using  his  method  he  succeeded  in  solving  problems  in 
a  much  shorter  way  than  had  been  done  before  him ;  but  it  falls  short 
in  its  application  to  other  sciences  which  are  concerned  with  existences, 
and  where  the  investigation  of  ideas  leads  to  no  results.  The  reason 
is  that  in  his  method,  which  was  intended  for  universal  application, 
Descartes  committed  the  error  of  not  discriminating  between  existen- 
tial and  logical  truth.  In  the  first  rule  of  his  method  he  speaks  of  truth 
without  stating  what  kind  of  truth.  This  general  defect  of  his  method 
reflects  on  the  treatment  of  the  traditional  problems  also.  In  applying 
this  mathematical  method  to  these  problems,  he  handled  supposed 
facts  as  ideas;  and  so  even  if  the  conclusions  as  to  the  existence  of  the 
supposed  facts  with  which  the  traditional  problems  deal  were  legiti- 
mate logically,  they  would  be  no  proof  of  the  actual  existence  of  these 
facts.  For  no  matter  how  clear  and  distinct  our  ideas  are,  they  are 
by  no  means  a  guarantee  that  the  facts,  for  which  these  ideas  stand, 
exist,  and,  therefore,  a  mathematical  method  can  never  solve  an 
existential  problem,  "Indeed,  one  of  the  greatest  philosophical  dis- 
coveries of  all  times  seems  to  have  been  made,  and  made  in  the  .e- 
teenth  century,  namely,  the  discovery  that  mathematics  is  a  non- 
existential  science,  and  this  discovery  we  owe  not  to  the  epistemologist, 
but  to  the  philosophical  mathematician."  ^^ 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Descartes  conceives  that  logic  makes  no 
existential  discoveries  in  the  case  of  the  triangle,  but  fails  to  see  this 
when  the  existence  of  God  is  concerned.  His  method  is  an  improve- 
ment on  the  scholastic  method  only  in  so  far  as  its  first  rule  is  directed 
against  authority  and  tradition;  but  this  rule  of  his  method  is  disre- 
garded in  the  treatment  of  the  traditional  problems  in  the  very  fact 
that  he  treats  them  at  all.  Aside  from  this  rule,  Descartes's  method 
does  not  carry  us  a  step  further  in  the  study  of  facts  than  did  the  old 
method  against  which  he  protested.  On  the  other  hand,  if  Descartes's 
improved  method  had  shown  itself  satisfactory  for  the  inquiry  into 
facts,  its  application  to  the  traditional  problems  would  have  brought 
us  no  better  success.     His  mistake  was  not  only  that  he  applied  a 

"  The  New  Realism,  p.  85. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       2"] 

mathematical  method  to  the  study  of  supposed  facts,  but  also  that  he 
did  not  stop  to  consider  the  character  of  the  problems  when  he  was 
asked  to  give  a  logical  demonstration  of  matters  of  belief.  A  due  con- 
sideration of  these  problems  would  have  revealed  to  him  the  fact  that 
their  nature  is  such  as  to  guarantee  no  success  even  if  most  carefully 
studied  by  means  of  the  most  perfect  dialectic.  Descartes  was  aware 
that  he  could  discover  nothing  in  this  field  by  means  of  the  senses. 
Therefore,  he  carefully  discarded  the  senses  as  not  reliable  when  he 
betook  himself  to  the  treatment  of  these  problems,  though  the  senses 
were  reliable  enough  to  study  the  world,  and  he  began  the  search  of 
the  knowledge  of  God  by  the  inspection  of  his  own  mind,  for  this  is, 
as  he  justly  remarks,  the  only  place  where  knowledge  of  God  can  be 
obtained,  even  according  to  the  Holy  Scripture.^"  What  he  found  there 
is  nothing  but  what  he  had  been  taught  of  Him.  Descartes  does  not 
pretend  to  conceive  anything  of  God,  but  states  that  he  afifirms  only 
what  he  knows  about  Him,  and  he  evidently  knew  no  more  about  Him 
than  the  theologians  knew. 

3 

The  failure  to  solve  these  problems  does  not,  however,  have  any 
bearing  on  the  rest  of  his  philosophy.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  these 
problems  are  in  very  loose  connection  with  the  entire  scheme  of  his 
system,  so  that  even  a  complete  omission  of  them  would  not  make  his 
system  suffer  any  lack.  Despite  the  fact  that  these  problems  are 
usually  taken  to  be  the  main  topics  of  Descartes's  philosophy,  a  close 
study  of  his  system  makes  it  obvious  that  his  whole  philosophical 
scheme  does  not  justify  the  significance  ascribed  to  these  problems. 
The  existence  of  God  and  of  the  soul  are  made  useless  from  the  point 
of  view  of  his  science.  Though  Descartes  asserts  that  the  demonstra- 
tions of  God's  existence  gain  clearness  when  it  is  understood  that  His 
existence  is  necessary  to  assure  us  of  the  reality  of  the  occurrences  and 
facts  of  the  material  world,  he  does  not  show  the  necessity  of  God's 
existence  in  the  development  of  his  scientific  ideas  concerning  the 
material  world.  The  world  being  represented  as  a  self -moving  mecha- 
nism where  all  phenomena  are  interconnected  by  necessary  laws  and 
where  every  effect  has  its  natural  causes,  there  is  no  place  in  it  for 
divine  grace  or  providence.  All  functions  of  life  being  described  in 
natural  terms,  the  soul  is  made  superfluous.  ^ 

Considering  Descartes's  scientific  ideas  of  the  world  and  man  it  is 
obvious  that  the  traditional  problems  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of 

2"  Preface  to  the  Meditations,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  5. 


28  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

the  soul  are  no  natural  outgrowth  of  his  philosophical  scheme.  There 
arises,  then,  the  question,  what  called  forth  the  discussion  of  these 
problems.  The  answer  to  this  question  we  find  explicitly  stated  by 
Descartes  in  the  preface  to  his  Meditations  where  the  motive  is  de- 
scribed as  a  purely  religious  one.  His  purpose  was,  he  tells  us,  to 
demonstrate  by  natural  reason,  for  the  sake  of  the  atheists  and  infidels, 
religious  truth  which  the  believer  accepts  on  faith  only.  For,  he  says, 
the  teachings  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  not  convincing  enough  to 
unbelievers  who  may,  perchance,  look  at  such  teaching  which  says 
that  we  must  believe  in  God  because  it  is  so  taught  in  the 
Scripture,   and   believe   in   Scripture   because   it    comes   from   God, 

'  as  reasoning  in  a  circle,  and,  therefore,  they  need  better  demon- 
stration.^^ 

As  to  the  soul,  he  says,  he  attempted  to  prove  only  what  is  necessary 
to  establish  and  maintain  religion,  i.  e.,  the  soul's  distinction  from  the 
body,  for  the  reason  that  the  Lateran  Council  condemned  the  opinion, 
held  by  many,  that  the  nature  of  the  soul  can  not  be  easily  discovered 
or  that  reason  even  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  it  perishes  with  the 
body,  and  entreats  all  Christian  philosophers  to  prove  the  contrary .^^ 
These  beliefs  in  the  existence  of  God  and  the  soul,  he  further  says  in 
the  preface  to  the  Meditations,  are  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of 
morality.  Since  vice  is  often  better  rewarded  than  virtue,  many  would 
be  inclined  to  do  what  is  profitable  rather  than  what  is  right,  if  there 
were  no  God  or  no  punishment  to  be  feared  in  the  after-life.  This 
provokes  the  question  why  such  considerations  should  have  made  him 
treat  the  traditional  problems.  For  according  to  his  fundamental  princi- 
pie  of  morality  right  actions  are  made  dependent  on  nothing  else  than 
thoughtfulness  and  knowledge.    But  these  considerations  did  not  make 

/liim  take  up  these  problems  on  his  own  account.  People  interested  in 
these  questions  of  theology  asked  him  to  demonstrate  these  matters 
by  the  method  with  which  he  was  successful  in  the  sciences.^^  At  first 
he  hesitated,  declaring  that  the  universal  belief  in  God  was  proof 
enough  of  His  existence  and  that,  therefore,  an  individual  ought  not  to 
undertake  to  convince  unbelievers  by  trying  to  demonstrate  it  to 
them,  unless  he  were  sure  really  to  conquer  them.^*    Moreover,  he  did 

"  MSditations,  Dedication. 

22  Preface  to  the  Meditations,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  S- 

^"D'autant  que  plusieurs  personnes  ont  desire  cela  de  moi,  qui  ont  connaissance  que  j'ai 
cultiv6  une  certaine  methode  pour  resoudre  toutes  sortes  de  difficultSs  dans  les  sciences;  methode 
.  .  .  de  laquelle  ils  savent  que  je  me  suis  servi  assez  heureusement  en  d'autre  rencontres; 
j'ai  pensfi  qu'il  etait  de  mon  devoir  de  tenter  quelque  chose  sur  ce  sujet."  Meditations,  Epilre, 
Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  6. 

^  "Le  consentment  universel  de  tous  les  peuples  est  assez  suffisant  pour  maintenir  la  Divinite  contre 
les  injures  des  Athees,  et  un  particulier  ne  doit  jamais  entrer  en  dispute  contre  eux,  s'il  n'est  tres  assure 
de  les  convaincre."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  I,  p.  182. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  29 

not  take  up  these  problems  until  just  before  the  publication  of  the 
Discourse. 

Thus,  despite  Descartes's  plea  for  a  naturalistic  philosophy  and  his 
setting  out  on  this  new  path,  he  returned  to  the  old  with  which  he  had 
broken  and  dealt  with  the  traditional  problems  for  which  his  scientific 
ideas  had  left  no  justified  place.  ^ 


CHAPTER  IV 

EXPLANATION  OF  THE  CONFLICT 

BETWEEN  DESCARTES'S  PROGRESSIVE  THINKING 

AND  TRADITIONS 


A  close  and  systematic  study  of  Descartes's  system  leaves  one  with 
the  impression  of  double  bookkeeping.     On  nearly  every  point  of  his 
'  philosophy  he  gives  us  two  views  which  are  almost  directly  opposed. 
y^e  builds  a  universe  first  on  mechanical  and  then  on  supernatural 
principles;  he  gives  us  a  scientific  system  which  excludes  God's  exis- 
tence and  the  existence  of  a  soul,  and  then  goes  ahead  and  proves  their 
existence;  he  assumes  a  radical  theory  of  conduct  which  discards 
authority  and  tradition  and  with  it  he  accepts  provisional  rules  which 
are  based  on  authority  and  tradition.    Side  by  side  with  his  scientific 
views  which  are  progressive,  but  irreligious,  he  holds  traditional  views 
which  are  religious,  but  unscientific.    There  is  in  his  philosophy  a  con- 
\fiict  between  progressive  thinking  and  theology,  a  conflict  which  can 
not  be  explained  by  inconsistency  on  the  part  of  Descartes;  he  seems, 
'Notwithstanding,  to  be  consistent.    The  scientific  views  with  which  he 
began  are  carried  through  to  the  very  last  and  are  preserved  in  his 
N^orks  even  where  the  contrary  views  are  introduced.    The  conceptions 
of  his  earlier  works,  of  the  treatises  on  the  world  and  man,  are  pre- 
served alongside  of  the  traditional  ideas  in  his  later  works  on   the 
Principles  and  the  Passions.     This  persistence  on  the  part  of  Des- 
cartes helps  us  to  sift  his  genuine  philosophy  from  secondary  admix- 
tures.   What  requires  elucidation  is  the  way  in  which  the  admixtures 
'^me  into  his  philosophy.    Descartes  speculated  about  first  principles, 
although  he  thought  such  speculation  to  be  of  no  moment  for  the 
acquisition  of  useful  knowledge,  which  he  considered  to  be  the  mission 
of  philosophy;  although  even  in  the  preface  to  the  Principles,  he  still 
\pointed  to  the  fruitlessness  of  an  inquiry  into  first  causes,^  ats  exempli- 
fied by  the  failure  of  great  minds  like  those  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  and 

'  "Or  il  y  a  eu  de  tout  temps  de  grands  hommes  qui  ont  tache  de  trouver  un  cinquieme  degre  pou'' 
parvenir  a  la  Sagesse,  incomparablement  plus  haut  et  plus  assure  que  les  quatre  autres;  c'est  de  cherche'' 
les  premieres  causes  et  les  vrais  Principes  dont  on  puisse  deduire  les  raisons  de  tout  ce  qu'on  est  capabl^ 
de  savoir;  et  ce  sont  particulierement  ceux  qui  ont  travaille  a  cela  qu'on  a  nommes  Philosophes.  Toute" 
fois  je  ne  sache  point  qu'il  y  en  ait  eu  jusques  a  present  a  qui  ce  dessein  ait  reussi."  Preface  to  Prin' 
cipes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  5. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  3I 

their  followers;  and  although  in  the  same  preface  he  still  emphasized 
the  validity  of  only  such  a  philosophy  as  gives  us  scientific  knowledge, 
indicating  his  preference  for  knowledge  obtained  by  the  senses  to 
opinion  supported  only  by  dialectic.^ 

The  development  of  Descartes's  thought  in  his  works  can  be  under- 
stood only  if  we  study  his  philosophy  in  the  light  of  his  time  and 
examine  the  conditions  under  which  he  wrote.  An  insight  into  the 
history  of  the  dogma,  politics,  and  social  conditions  of  those  days 
explains  to  us  much  of  the  peculiar  course  which  the  development  of  his 
philosophy  took. 

Descartes  lived  in  a  transition  period,  a  time  of  conflict  between  the 
old  and  the  new  orders.  The  majority  constituted,  as  it  usually  does,  the 
conservative  element  of  those  days.  Authority  was  still  believed  by  the 
majority  to  be  the  criterion  of  truth.  The  Renaissance,  which  had  sety 
out,  as  it  were,  to  bring  about  emancipation  from  authority,  had,  in 
fact,  only  substituted  one  authority  for  another,  the  authority  of  the 
ancients  for  the  authority  of  churchmen.  Though  the  great  ardor  for 
historical  research  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  considerably  decreased 
in  Descartes's  time,  the  interest  in  antiquity  as  the  original  and  most 
reliable  source  was  still  alive.  This  interest  was  kept  up  particularly 
by  the  religious  controversies  of  those  days.  Both  the  Reformers  and 
the  Catholics  had  recourse  to  history  to  prove  the  agreement  of  their 
assertions  with  the  primitive  church.  Both  went  back  to  their  sources 
— the  Protestants,  appealing  to  the  authority  of  God's  word ;  the  Catho- 
lics, appealing  to  the  old  authorities  of  the  church.  The  majority  was 
not  yet  ripe  for  the  more  radical  doctrines  brought  forth  by  Descartes 
and  his  progressive  contemporaries.  The  new  spirit  that  had  awakened 
with  the  Renaissance  and  had  led  up  to  the  Reformation  had  only 
shaken  the  conceptions  inherited  from  the  Roman  Empire  and  persist- 
ing through  the  middle  ages,  but  had  not  wiped  them  out  altogether. 
The  traditions  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  were  too  deeply  rooted  to 
be  at  once  completely  extinguished.  The  air  was  still  full  of  them 
throughout  the  modern  period  up  to  the  Westphalian  peace  which  is 

-  "Ainsi  toute  la  Philosophie  est  comme  un  arbre,  dont  les  racines  sont  la  Metaphysique,  le  tronc  est 
la  Physique,  et  les  branches  qui  sortent  de  ce  tronc  sont  toutes  les  autres  sciences,  qui  se  reduisent  a 
trois  principales,  a  savoir  la  Medecine,  la  Mecanique  et  la  Morale,  qui,  presupposant  une  entiere  con- 
naissance  des  autres  sciences,  est  le  dernier  degre  de  la  Sagesse."  Preface  to  Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol. 
IX,  p.  14. 

"Or  comme  ce  n'est  pas  des  racines,  ni  du  tronc  des  arbres,  qu'on  cueille  les  fruits,  mais  seulement 
des  extremites  de  leurs  branches,  ainsi  la  principale  utilite  de  la  Philosophie  depend  de  celles  de  ces 
parties  qu'on  ne  pent  apprendre  que  les  dernieres."    Preface  to  Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  IS- 

"Et  il  me  semble  que  toute  la  Sagesse  qu'on  a  coutume  d'avoir  n'est  acquise  que  par  ces  quatre 
moyens;  .  .  .  Le  premier'ne  contient  que  des  notions  qui  sont  si  claires  d'elles  memes  qu'on  les  peut 
acquerir  sans  meditation.  Le  second  comprend  tout  ce  que  I'experience  des  sens  fait  connaitre.  Le 
troisieme,  ce  que  la  conversation  des  autres  hommes  nous  enseigne.  A  quoi  on  peut  ajouter,  pour  le 
quatrieme,  la  lecture."    Preface  to  Principes,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX,  p.  s. 


32  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

regarded  as  having  brought  about  a  complete  extermination  of  those 
ideas  by  its  regulations  of  religious  rights  and  by  its  settlement  of  the 
question  of  imperial  authority.  This  peace,  however,  was  concluded 
only  three  years  before  Descartes's  death.  In  his  time  the  traditions 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  were  still  alive.  He  was  the  witness  of  the 
endless  struggles  of  these  old  traditions  against  the  new  spirit.  All 
the  political  struggles,  which  had  originated  or  become  complicated 
through  the  Reformation  and  the  counter-Reformation  at  home  and 
abroad,  took  place  during  his  life.  Religious  controversies  were  still 
going  on.  Two  years  after  Descartes's  birth  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was 
issued;  it  did  not,  however,  accomplish  its  purpose.  The  struggle 
between  Reformers  and  Catholics  was  carried  on  even  after  its  declara- 
tion. The  Edict  had  not  yet  been  incorporated  when  the  Catholics 
protested,  and  the  government  after  useless  threatenings  had  to  make 
various  restrictions  which  practically  withdrew  the  rights  granted  to 
the  Reformers.  The  mutual  hatred  was  increased  and  led  to  endless 
struggles. 

The  Reformation  was  limited  rather  to  a  change  of  church  doctrines. 
It  was  no  real,  intellectual  emancipation  as  it  is  often  claimed  to  be. 
The  minds  both  of  Reformers  and  of  Catholics  were  practically  on  the 
same  level  of  development;  whichever  party  had  the  power  in  its  hands 
tried  to  suppress  the  other.  The  orthodox  party  was  the  stronger. 
Despite  the  rapid  spread  of  the  doctrines  of  the  reformers  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  majority  of  the  people  in  France  were  Roman 
Catholics.  The  attempts  at  reform  were  followed  by  a  strong  Catholic 
reaction.  The  counter-Reformation  led  to  an  outbreak  of  great  reli- 
gious ardor  accompanied  by  austerity  and  asceticism.  Not  only  were 
the  masses  very  religious,  but  the  majority  of  the  higher  classes  was 
firmly  orthodox.  The  great  number  of  churches  and  convents  erected 
at  that  time  testifies  to  the  great  religious  enthusiasm  which  surpassed 
that  of  all  other  centuries.  While  there  were  no  cloisters  for  women  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  a  considerable  number  arose  in  the  first  half  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  greater  number  of  French  Catholic 
organizations  and  orders  date  from  that  time.  There  was  established 
in  every  diocese  a  seminary  for  the  preparation  of  good  priests.  The 
Catholics  made  every  effort  to  regain  the  masses  by  means  of  missions 
and  organizations.  They  conducted  a  propaganda  on  a  large  scale. 
The  Jesuits  and  other  religious  orders  had  their  missionaries  in  different 
parts  of  the  kingdom  expounding  the  Catholic  teachings  in  the  streets 
and  in  the  market-places.  The  outbreak  of  fanaticism  was  so  great 
that  a  particular  order  was  formed — the  "Compagnie  du  Saint-Sacre- 
ment" — ^which  carried  with  great  pomp  the  holy  sacrament,  exposing 


METAPHYSICS     OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL  33 

it  in  squares  and  halls  whenever  there  was  a  gathering  of  the  masses. 
Spying  was  part  of  the  duty  of  such  holy  orders.  One  had  to  be  very 
careful  in  one's  speech.  The  slightest  freedom  caused  atheism  to  be 
suspected.  This  suspicion  was  not,  however,  groundless.  Free- 
thinking  had  begun  to  manifest  itself.  To  combat  infidels  there  was 
formed  a  Christian  militia,  that  dreamed  of  extending  the  holy  armies 
all  over  Europe. 

Never  before  had  the  clergy  had  such  strong  influence  in  France. 
Priests  and  theologians  had  never  held  so  many  state  positions  as  in 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  king  consulted  them 
in  his  affairs.  They  were  the  leaders  in  education.  Since  1623  the 
"Oratory"  devoted  itself  partly  to  the  instruction  of  youth,  but  educa- 
tion was  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  the  Jesuits.  In  the  province  of  Paris 
alone  the  number  of  pupils,  divided  among  twelve  colleges  and  one 
grammar  school,  amounted  to  13,195.  The  instruction  in  these  schools 
was  such  as  to  develop  sentiments  favorable  to  the  monarchy  and  to 
the  dominant  church.  The  students  were  trained  to  complete  obedi- 
ence and  submission  to  authority.  The  cult  of  the  Virgin  in  these 
schools  prepared  young  people  for  the  different  congregations  devoted 
to  the  service  of  the  Virgin  which  they  entered  on  leaving  college.  It 
was  not  unusual  for  young  men  and  women,  sons  and  daughters  of 
aristocratic  families,  to  devote  themselves  to  the  cultivation  of  religious 
ideals.  The  members  of  these  congregations  were  to  serve  as  examples  of 
pious  devotion  and  austerity  to  their  other  college  comrades  by  laboring 
for  the  salvation  of  souls  and  conversion  of  heretics.  A  story  connected 
with  the  foundation  of  Port-Royal  illustrates  how  deeply  religious 
ardor  had  penetrated  the  youth.  Arnauld,  a  Jansenist  and  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  University  against  the  Jesuits,  had  named  his  little  girl 
of  nine  years  coadjutrix  of  the  abbess  of  Port-Royal.  When  the  abbess 
died  the  coadjutrix  followed  her  in  the  office.  At  the  age  of  eighteen 
she  one  day  imagined  that  prayers  had  revealed  to  her  that  a  true 
Christian  life  was  entirely  different  from  the  easy  life  which  she  led. 
She  decided  to  part  completely  with  the  world,  to  retire  further  into 
seclusion,  and  to  accept  stricter  rules.  When  on  the  appointed  day 
her  father  came  to  see  her  as  usual,  he  could  speak  to  her  only  through 
the  gate.  Neither  requests  nor  threatenings  could  move  her  to  change 
her  decision. 

Such  religious  enthusiasm  led  to  great  intolerance,  which  became  so 
extreme  that  the  government,  itself  very  conservative  and  prejudiced, 
had  often  to  intervene  to  decrease  it.  The  masses  were  not  yet  pre- 
pared for  freedom  of  conscience  and  tolerance  of  belief.  They  still 
held  the  traditional  idea,  one  country  and  one  religion,  and  worked 


34  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

systematically  for  the  extirpation  of  all  heresy.     The  most  widely 
spread  and,   therefore,   most  persecuted  heresy  was  Protestantism. 
The  Catholics  made  repeated  attempts  to  put  the  Protestants  out  of 
existence,  subjecting  them  to  all  kinds  of  oppression  and  restrictions. 
Protestants  were  repeatedly  attacked,   their  churches  burned,  and 
their  people  executed.    The  Catholics,  whose  teachings  were  compatible 
with  political  and  social  conservatism,  had  the  support  of  the  govern- 
ment in  their  fights  against  dissenters.     The  government  which  had 
provisionally  accepted  religious  tolerance  was  hostile  to  the  reformers 
on  account  of  their  belief  in  the  legitimacy  of  individual  examination. 
Nobody  in  France  at  that  time  had  the  right  to  act  or  even  to  express 
himself  concerning  matters  of  state  or  religion,  unless  the  particular 
position  which  he  held  authorized  it.    There  were  two  duties  imposed 
upon  every  subject  of  the  state— to  be  religious  and  to  obey  the  ruler. 
After  the  assassinations  of  Henry  III  and  of  Henry  IV  the  reaction  in 
France  was  very  strong.    Under  Louis  XIII,  when  Cardinal  Richelieu 
was  practically  ruler,  there  was  a  tendency  towards  absolutism  which 
reached  its  climax  in  Louis  XIV.    Louis  XIV,  a  devoted  adherent  of 
the  church,  believed  in  a  kind  of  exchange  between  himself  and  God, 
and  because  of  the  "divine  rights"  granted  to  him  by  God,  was  anxious 
to  serve  Him  by  demanding  adherence  to  orthodox  beliefs.  Dissenters 
from  orthodoxy  were  exposed  to  great  disadvantages.     Protestant 
schools,  where  free  arts  and  sciences  were  taught,  were  suppressed. 
Protestants  were  for  a  time  even  prohibited  from  publishing  books. 
They  were  not  allowed  to  send  their  children  abroad  to  study,  even 
when  there  were  no  vacancies  in  the  few  schools  where  Protestant  chil- 
dren were  tolerated.     The  reason  for  this  prohibition  was  the  fear 
that  the  children  might  be  taught  maxims  which  would  interfere  with 
the  loyalty  due  to  the  Catholic  country  in  which  they  were  born.    The 
parliament  rendered  assistance  in  the  persecution  of  heresy.     The 
assembly  of  the  clergy  did  its  best  in  stirring  the  emperor  against  dis- 
senters, calling  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  must  do  something 
for  God,  who  had  done  so  much  for  him,  and  express  his  gratitude  by 
extirpating  all  kinds  of  heresy.    They  repeatedly  asked  the  king  to 
take  away  from  his  subjects  the  claimed  liberty  of  conscience  and  to 
put  them  to  the  happy  necessity  of  always  being  faithful.     In  165 1 
they  sent  to  the  king  the  following  petition :  "Nous  nedemandons  pas. 
Sire,  a  Votre  Majeste,  qu'elle  (Assemblee  generale  du  Clerge)  bannisse 
de  son  royaume  cette  malheureuse  liberte  de  conscience    .  .  .    parce 
que  nous  ne  jugeons  pas  que  I'execution  en  soit  facile,  mais  nous  sou- 
haiterions  au  moins  que  ce  mal  ne  fit  pas  de  progres  .    .    ."'    The 

« Lavisse,  Histoire  de  la  France,  T.  VII,'  p.  44. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL  35 

bourgeoisie  and  the  aristocracy,  who  as  a  rule  belong  to  the  conserva- 
tive party,  naturally  supported  the  orthodox  church  in  its  fight  against 
heresy.  The  oppressions  and  persecutions  succeeded  in  decreasing 
considerably  the  dissensions;  it  was  impossible,  however,  to  remove 
them  altogether.  The  new  spirit,  a  natural  development  of  conditions 
and  time,  could  not  be  killed  as  easily  as  individual  dissenters  or  even 
masses  of  them. 

The  state  of  affairs  in  France  at  that  time  was  very  complicated. 
In  addition  to  its  fight  against  reformers,  the  Catholic  church  itself 
was  divided  by  the  Jansenist  movement.  This  movement,  like  any 
other  ideal  which  sprang  up  in  those  days,  was  condemned  and  perse- 
cuted. The  development  of  intelligence  so  emphasized  by  the  Jansen- 
ists,  was  against  the  interest  both  of  the  monarchy  and  of  the  church. 
Conditions  in  France  were  yet  more  complicated  by  the  question  of  the 
relations  of  the  king,  the  Pope,  and  the  Church.  The  king,  believing 
that  he  held  his  office  directly  from  God  and  that  absolute  monarchy 
was  his  "divine  right,"  fought  against  the  infallibility  claimed  by  the 
Pope  on  account  of  his  divine  ordinance.  They  were  in  constant  oppo- 
sition. This  again  put  the  church  in  an  embarrassing  situation,  for 
it  had  to  obey  both  the  Pope  and  the  king.  The  absolutism  claimed  by 
the  king  on  the  basis  of  his  "divine  rights"  raised  again  the  question  of 
his  relation  to  the  church  as  her  son. 

Of  these  discussions  the  purely  theological  question  raised  by  the 
Reformation  and  the  counter-Reformation  stands  out  most  conspicu- 
ously. It  constituted  the  main  interest  of  that  time,  overshadowing  all 
other  questions.  It  was  the  leading  point  by  which  all  expression  of 
thought  was  measured  and  which  complicated  all  other  queries.  In 
addition  to  this,  loyalty  to  the  monarchy  was  carefully  watched.  One 
had  to  be  careful  not  to  be  accused  of  disloyalty  to  the  monarchy,  of 
Protestantism,  Calvinism,  atheism,  or  any  other  "heresy,"  and  also 
not  to  get  into  conflict  with  the  doctrines  of  the  reformers.  An  impar- 
tial judgment  was  almost  impossible.  The  situation  had  a  deadening 
influence  on  the  intellects  of  that  time.  Literature,  science,  an^ 
art  were  neglected.  Only  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century 
did  the  value  of  science  begin  to  be  realized.  Louis  XIV  showed  him- 
self kindly  disposed  to  science  and  art,  and  protected  research  and 
learning;  but  this  was  only  at  the  very  end  of  Descartes's  life.  His 
time  was  very  unfavorable  for  progress  of  any  kind.  ^ 

The  foundation  of  the  Catholic  church,  which  was,  of  course,  the 
dominant  institution,  being  the  perpetuity  and  persistency  of  its  doc- 
trines, the  slightest  innovation  was  checked.  The  main  instruments 
for  the  removal  of  dissensions — the  Inauisition,  the  Index,  and  the  Jes- 


36  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

uits,  were  still  freely  used  in  Descartes's  time.  All  publications  were 
under  the  control  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Index.  Whatever  breathed 
novelty  was  suspected.  Whatever  tended  to  weaken  the  claims  of  the 
orthodox  church  was  suppressed.  Every  new  work,  whether  on  cosmo- 
logy, physics,  physiology,  or  even  medicine,  was  criticized  from  the 
viewpoint  of  theology  or  Aristotle,  whose  doctrines  were  interpreted  as 
favorable  to  the  church.  A  disagreement  with  accepted  beliefs  in 
theology  or  approved  authors  brought  opposition  and  persecution. 
The  condemnation  of  Copernicus  and  Galileo  exemplifies  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal attitude  toward  scientific  inquiry.  Experiment  and  examination, 
the  main  instruments  of  science,  were  excluded  by  the  very  assertion 
of  Catholicism.  Bossuet,  in  a  work  concerning  the  Catholic  Church 
written  in  Descartes's  time,  praises  its  faith  in  tradition  and  argues 
against  the  method  of  examination  on  the  ground  that,  if  one  were  to 
examine  the  thing  before  believing  it,  he  would  have  to  begin  with  the 
question  whether  God  exists;  and  such  inquiry,  he  feared,  might  easily 
lead  to  the  denial  of  God's  existence.  A  good  Christian  is  one  who  be- 
lieves before  he  examines  his  belief,  and,  to  quote  Bossuet,  "il  croit 
tout  avant  que  d'avoir  lu  la  premiere  lettre  et  que  d'avoir  seulement 
ouvert  le  livre,"  ^  i.  e.,  the  Holy  Scripture.  The  fear  of  reason  in  that 
time  is  typically  characterized  by  Boileau  in  his  interesting  Arrets. 
Boileau  represents  the  court  as  examining  a  request  of  the  University 
in  which  justice  is  invoked  against  the  unknown  lady,  called  Reason, 
who  for  several  years  had  been  forcing  herself  into  the  above  Univer- 
sity. She  is  accused  of  having  caused  vexation  by  attributing  to  the 
heart,  without  Aristotle's  approval,  the  duty  of  making  the  blood  flow 
with  full  force  all  over  the  body  and  circulate  with  impunity  through 
the  veins  and  arteries.  This  assertion  she  is  said  to  have  made  on  no 
other  grounds  than  that  of  experience,  the  authority  of  which  has 
never  been  recognized  in  the  above  University.  After  a  due  considera- 
tion of  the  request,  the  court  ordered  that  Aristotle  should  always  be 
followed  and  taught  by  the  doctors,  masters  of  art,  and  professors, 
who  for  this  purpose  are  not  obliged  to  read  him  to  know  his  lan- 
guage and  ideas.  The  blood  was  prohibited  from  carrying  on  its 
movement  with  impunity  under  the  penalty  of  being  completely 
delivered  over  to  the  faculty  of  medicine. 

Where  the  belief  in  authority  was  still  so  strong  and  widespread,  the 
newly  discovered  microscope  had  not  much  chance  to  render  its  ser- 
vices. Laboratory  research  was  very  backward.  Except  a  few  astro- 
nomical observations  there  are  hardly  any  worthy  of  mention.  Conse- 
quently, sciences  which  required  laboratory  research  were  not  devel- 

*  Quoted  by  Lavisse,  Op.  Cit.,  Vol.  VIP,  p.  53- 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       37 

Oped.  In  zoology  people  still  believed  in  the  preformation  theory. 
Chemistry  was  not  yet  freed  from  alchemy.  The  belief  in  astrology 
was  still  extant;  the  stars  justified  their  existence  by  their  influence 
on  man's  destiny.  In  anatomy  Aristotle's  opinions  continued  to  be 
respected.  Medicine  had  made  no  great  discoveries  either.  This 
could  hardly  be  otherwise  in  a  time  when  there  was  more  stress  laid 
on  the  fact  that  the  practitioner  should  be  a  good  Catholic  than  a 
capable  physician,  and  when  this  profession  was  temporarily  pro- 
hibited to  those  who  did  not  belong  to  the  orthodox  church.  Moreover, 
the  college  preparation  was  not  adapted  to  the  training  of  scientists. 
The  course  was  exclusively  formal,  and  scholastic  methods  were  still 
practised.  To  some  sciences,  however,  the  time  was  more  favorable 
than  to  others,  namely,  to  those  which  were  less  liable  to  interfere  with 
accepted  political  and  religious  beliefs.  Mathematics  was  highly 
developed.  The  syllogistic  exercises  of  scholasticism  were  evidently 
a  good  preparation  for  this  branch  of  science  which  uses  the  same 
method  as  the  one  used  by  scholastic  sciences — that  of  abstract  reason- 
ing. France  became  the  meeting  place  of  all  great  mathematicians, 
and  discoveries  of  great  importance  were  made.  Descartes's  analytical 
geometry,  Leibnitz's  and  Newton's  infinitesimal  calculus  date  from 
that  time.  Geometry  was  being  applied  even  to  matters  of  physics, 
as,  for  instance,  by  Galileo,  and  later  by  Hobbes.  This  over-emphasis 
on  mathematics  in  the  search  for  truth  explains  Descartes's  error  in 
falling  back  into  the  scholastic  method,  which  he  had  combatted;  he 
often  employed  the  mathematical  method  in  the  study  of  existential 
truth.  Pleading  for  the  importance  of  experience  and  observation  in 
the  study  of  nature,  he  still  often  substituted  logical  truth  for  facts.  A 
logical  demonstration  concerning  facts  of  nature  was  sometimes  taken 
by  him  to  be  the  evidence  for  those  facts.  Thus,  the  fact  that  we  can 
infinitely  divide  a  body  in  imagination  was  used  to  prove  that  that 
body  is  in  reality  infinitely  divisible.  He  approved  of  Galileo  for  usine, 
the  mathematical  method  in  his  physics,  and  disapproved  of  Bacon  for 
saying  that  mathematics  is  the  servant  and  not  the  master  of  physics. 
Though  the  opposition  of  the  church  and  state  to  all  innovation 
made  the  progress  of  science  very  slow,  it  could  not  stop  it  altogether. 
There  were  minds  already  affected  by  the  germ  of  progress,  cultivated 
in  the  preceding  centuries.  The  utility  of  science  had  been  realized 
by  them.  Divine  revelation  no  longer  filled  such  minds  with  expecta- 
tions. There  were  attempts  on  the  part  of  men  to  become  through 
their  own  efforts  masters  over  nature,  of  which  philosophy  was  to  give 
the  explanation.  Huygens  was  not  the  only  one  of  his  time  who 
believed  that  philosophy  is  to  give  "les  connaissances  des  causes  de  la 


38  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

nature."  The  definition  of  a  philosopher  of  those  days,  which  we  find 
in  the  Dictionary  of  the  Academy,  shows  how  closely  philosophy  was 
associated  with  science.  A  philosopher  is  defined  as  "celui  qui  s'ap- 
plique  a  I'etude  des  sciences  et  qui  cherche  a  connaitre  les  effets  par 
leurs  causes  et  par  leurs  principes."*  Philosophical  research  was  part 
of  the  work  of  the  Academy  of  Science.  At  that  time  man  aspired  in 
France  to  a  philosophy  which  would  give  the  explanation  of  all 
physical  phenomena,  enumerated  by  Huygens — ^weight,  light,  cold- 
ness, heat;  which  would  disclose  the  compounds  of  air,  fire,  water, 
and  of  all  other  bodies;  which  would  show  how  metals,  stones,  and 
grass  grow;  what  the  service  of  respiration  to  animals  is;  and  through 
which  a  knowledge  of  all  other  things,  of  which  the  world  knows  little, 
but  which  would  be  very  useful  to  know,  could  be  obtained.^  Ex- 
periments on  these  phenomena  were  to  give  the  foundation  for  a 
philosophy. 

There  was  a  pronounced  tendency  towards  a  naturalistic  philosophy, 
but  it  was  suppressed  at  its  very  outbreak.  Naturalism  was  not  judged 
from  the  point  of  view  of  its  own  merits;  religion  was  the  fundamental 
interest,  and  the  first  question  was.  What  is  its  relation  to  religion?  It 
was  found  guilty  of  looking  for  truth  by  a  different  method  from  the 
one  religion  used,  and  was  thus  condemned  not  as  a  sterile  method  in 
philosophy,  but  as  a  dangerous  rival  to  religion  in  searching  for  truth. 
The  main  check  to  naturalism  was  the  fact  that  it  was  associated  with 
atheism.  "It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  last  heresy  should  be,  if  not 
atheism,  at  least  a  declared  naturalism,"  wrote  Leibnitz.  Now  atheism 
was  not  only  against  the  interest  of  the  church,  but  also  that  of  the 
government  which  maintained  the  "divine  rights"  of  kings;  thus, 
atheism  was  fatal  to  the  whole  social  order.  Naturalism  was,  therefore, 
persecuted  like  any  other  heresy.  Imprisonment  and  the  stake  were  its 
rewards.  The  philosopher  of  nature  was  burned  at  the  order  of  the 
parliament  in  Toulouse.  The  poet  Theophile  de  Viau  barely  escaped 
the  same  fate,  having  been  imprisoned  by  the  parliament  of  Paris. 
Such  measures  were  very  eflfective.  Naturalism  was  checked  while  in 
its  embryonic  stage.  The  best  illustration  of  this  is  Descartes  who,  as 
has  been  said,  did  not  feel  any  call  to  martyrdom. 


The  orthodoxy  of  the  day  had  a  deterrent  influence  on  Descartes's 
original  tendencies  and  gave  the  development  of  his  system  its  peculiar 
direction.  Naturalistic  and  practical  at  the  outset,  it  became  under 
the  stress  of  circumstances  rationalistic  and  idealistic.    His  first  works, 

'  Lavisse,  Op.  Cit.      «  Lavisse,  Op.  Cit. 


-^uua* 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  39 

Le  Monde  and  the  other  scientific  treatises,  and  his  own  account  of 
his  procedure  in  the  Discourse  bear  testimony  to  the  fact  that  he  started 
out  as  a  naturalist,  and  that  the  natural  was  emphatically  marked  off 
from  the  supernatural.  Despite  the  naturalistic  philosophy  of  his  first 
treatises,  which  Descartes  thought  the  only  philosophy  worth  while, 
we  find,  in  the  Discourse,  the  Meditations,  and  the  Principles,  side  by 
side  with  it  the  idealistic  and  theological  problems  which  were  excluded 
by  his  scientific  system.  But  in  that  time  of  theological  controversies 
when  the  Bible  was  the  source  of  verification  of  all  truth,  it  was  impos- 
sible for  the  philosophers  to  keep  away  from  theology  undisturbed. 
No  matter  how  hard  Descartes  struggled  against  dealing  with  theo- 
logical problems  he  did  notsucceed  inlaying  aside  the  "divine  learning", 
as  did  Bacon.  He  first  ignored  religious  questions  of  the  day,  but  they 
were  forced  upon  him  by  the  criticism  of  his  writings.  The  first  ques- 
tion of  his  critics  was  where  his  writings  stood  on  this  or  that  point  of 
religion.  The  central  problem  around  which  all  reformatory  doctrines 
turned  was  the  theory  of  the  Eucharist.  The  decision  of  the  Council  of 
Trent  concerning  the  sacrament  was  a  very  important  point,  and  every 
publication  that  pretended  to  be  orthodox  had  to  reckon  with  it.  Des- 
cartes carefully  avoided  this  topic  in  his  physics,  but  was  brought  to 
the  discussion  of  it  by  the  inquiry  concerning  the  relation  of  his  philos- 
ophy to  it.  "  How  do  you  reconcile  your  philosophy  with  the  theory  of 
the  Eucharist?"  Arnauld  asked  him.  If  the  church  teaches  us  to 
believe  the  presence  of  Christ  not  in  actual  body  during  the  sacrament, 
how  does  the  theory  which,  maintains  the  identity  of  body  and  exten- 
sion explain  "what  is  most  sacred  to  the  world?"  ^  Thus  Descartes, 
having  given  no  place  to  this  purely  theological  question  in  his  works, 
was  forced  to  the  discussion  of  it  in  his  answers  to  these  objections, 
where  he  was  anxious  to  show  that  his  philosophy  agreed  with  the 
decisions  of  the  Council  of  Trent. ^ 

Descartes  had  met  with  unfavorable  criticism  even  before  the  appear- 
ance of  his  works ;  his  doubt  and  renunciation  of  all  authoritative  doc- 
trines were  known  before  the  publication  of  the  Discourse  and  aroused 
suspicion  against  him.  He,  therefore,  made  it  his  business  to  guard 
against  conflicts  with  orthodoxy.  Having  left  Paris,  he  kept  track  of 
all  social  occurrences  which  took  place  there  in  his  absence  and  regulated 
by  them  his  undertakings.  "Je  n'ai  pas  jure  de  ne  permettre  point  que 
mon  Monde  voie  le  jour  pendant  ma  vie;  comme  je  n'ai  point  aussi  jure 
de  faire  qu'il  le  voie  apres  ma  mort;  mais  j'ai  dessein,  tant  en  cela  qu'en 
toute  autre  chose,  de  me  regler  selon  les  occurrences,  et  de  suivre, 
autant  que  je  pourrai,  les  conseils  les  plus  surs  et  les  plus  tranquilles,"  ' 

'  Oeuvres,  Vol.  V,  p.  190.     «  Corr..  Vol.  Ill,  p.  349.     '  Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  552. 


40  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

he  wrote  to  Mersenne.  The  latter  kept  him  informed  as  to  the  appear- 
ance of  new  books,  new  inventions,  and  new  experiments,  and  of  the 
attitude  of  the  learned  of  the  school  towards  them  and  of  their  con- 
troversies. Descartes  was  particularly  anxious  to  know  the  rumors 
concerning  himself  ^°  and  was  very  much  impressed  by  those  which 
were  hostile  to  him.  They  often  influenced  his  enterprises  and  led  him 
to  greater  caution  in  the  expression  of  thought,  which  was  already  re- 
stricted enough,  as  is  seen  from  his  following  words :  "J'ai  vu  encore  ces 
jours  un  livre  qui  me  donne  occasion  d'etre  dorenavant  beaucoup  moins 
libre  k  communiquer  mes  pensees  que  je  n'ai  ete  jusques  ici."  The 
humors  that  followed  his  doubt  of  generally  accepted  beliefs  were  the 
stimuli  which  caused  him  to  undertake  the  search  for  first  principles 
when  he  would  not  otherwise  have  "ventured  so  soon"  on  it.  Both  the 
Meditations  and  Principles  were  written  and  published  to  meet  objec- 
tions to  his  heterodoxy.  The  rumors  which  had  spread  in  theological 
circles  concerning  the  heterodoxy  of  his  philosophy  made  him  take  up 
problems  of  reconciling  his  physics  with  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Seeing 
that  despite  his  precautions  his  philosophy  was  found  unfavorable  to 
theology,  it  dawned  upon  him  "like  a  miracle" ^^  to  expound  his  new 
philosophy  in  such  a  way  that  it  would  show  agreement  with  the  truth 
of  religion.  Before  so  doing,  however,  he  applied  to  his  friends,  Catho- 
lic theologians,  in  order  to  find  out  definitely  the  determinations  of  the 
Council  of  Trent  concerning  matters  upon  which  his  philosophy 
touched;  ^^  he  thus  was  inclined  to  adapt  himself  to  the  directions  of 
the  Council  of  Trent.  His  original  plan,  to  follow  in  his  conclusions  his 
own  unbiassed  reasoning  only,  was  neglected  at  the  thought  of  possible 
persecutions.  The  exposition  of  his  theories  was  directed  by  his  desire 
to  have  "  Rome  and  Sorbonne  on  his  side."  Theological  interests  were 
carefully  taken  into  consideration;  "Je  prends  soigneusement  garde  a 
ne  pas  mettre  la  moindre  chose  dans  mes  ecrits  que  les  theologiens 
puissent  censurer  avec  raison."  ^*  To  succeed  better  in  that,  he  willingly 
followed  the  suggestions  of  his  critics,  who  were  theologians.  In  a 
letter  to  Mersenne  we  hear  that  Descartes  corrected  his  metaphysics 
in  accordance  with  the  objections  of  Arnauld,  a  Catholic  theologian. 
The  only  reason  for  these  corrections  was  to  show  his  deference 
to  Arnauld's   criticism   and,   thus,     to   induce   other   theologians   to 

"  "Mais  je  me  promets  que  vous  me  continuerez  toujours  a  me  mander  franchement  ce  qui  se  dira  de 
moi,  soit  en  bien,  soit  en  mal,  et  vous  en  avez  dorenavant  plus  d'occasion  que  jamais,  puisque  mon  livre 
est  enfin  arrive  a  Paris."    Oeuvres,  Vol.  I,  p.  485. 

"Si  par  hasard  vous  rencontrez  quelqu'un  qui  parle  de  moi,  et  qui  se  souvienne  encore  que  je  suis 
au  monde,  je  serai  bien  aise  de  savoir  ce  qu'on  en  dit,  et  ce  qu'on  pense  que  je  fasse  et  o\i  je  suis." 
Oeuvres,  Vol.  I,  p.  135. 

"  Lettres,  Vol.  II,  p.  164,  Ed.  Clerselier. 

^^Lettres,  Vol.  II,  pp.  164  and  481,  Ed.  Clerselier. 

^3 Objections  et  Reponses,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  II,  p.  74,  Ed.  Cousin. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       4I 

express  their  opinions  to  him  freely,  before  the  publication  of  his 
works. ^^ 

The  fact  that  he  sent  his  writings  to  the  faculty  of  theology  of  the 
Sorbonne  and  to  the  Jesuits  for  examination  before  their  publication  is 
proof  enough  that  religion  and  accepted  beliefs  and  customs  of  the 
country  were  taken  into  consideration  in  the  exposition  of  his  doctrines. 
For  the  faculty  of  theology  in  Paris,  the  center  of  all  theological 
sciences,  was  one  of  the  most  conservative  institutions.  It  stood  for  the 
Catholic  cause  with  fanatic  ardor.  It  worked  for  the  preservation  of 
orthodoxy  in  science  just  as  the  Pope  and  the  bishops  worked  for  the 
preservation  of  orthodoxy  in  the  church.  Its  mission  was  to  "deter- 
miner et  decider  tout  le  dit  affaire,  en  I'honneur  de  Dieu,  exaltation  de 
la  foi  catholique  et  extirpation  de  cette  heresie  lutherine,  qui  commence 
fort  a  pulluler  par  degu."^^  The  faculty  of  theology  together  with 
the  French  parliament  was  the  instrument  of  which  the  government 
made  use  for  its  fanatic  purposes.  When  in  1624  there  was  issued 
an  edict  prohibiting  the  teaching  of  anything  but  Aristotle  or  approved 
authors,  it  was  welcomed  by  the  conservative  faculty,  which  several 
years  later  even  asked  for  a  renewal  of  it.  The  Jesuits,  again,  as  an 
order  subservient  to  the  orthodox  church,  were  on  their  guard  against 
whatever  was  destructive  of  orthodoxy,  and  on  account  of  their 
great  influence  in  educational  circles  could  easily  prevent  a  hearing  of 
a  new  theory  that  they  did  not  find  sufficiently  orthodox. 

Such  were  the  censors  which  Descartes's  works  had  to  pass.  Both 
the  faculty  of  theology  and  the  Jesuits  were  to  a  great  extent  respon- 
sible for  the  direction  the  expression  Descartes's  thought  took.  It  was 
of  great  import  to  him  to  have  their  approval.  This,  however,  could 
be  obtained  only  through  loyalty  to  orthodoxy,  and  he  attempted  to 
give  his  works  at  least  the  appearance  of  such  loyalty.  God  is  always 
brought  to  the  front.  He  is  introduced  as  a  sort  of  appendix  to  every 
argument  whether  or  not  room  is  left  for  Him.  Descartes  represents 
the  world  as  a  mechanism,  ever  moving,  where  events  take  place  by 
the  operation  of  constant  laws,  and  he  refers  to  God  for  original  and 
continual  creation.  He  postulated  from  the  scientific  point  of  view  a 
constant  amount  of  energy,  and  brings  in  God  as  the  preserver  of  this 
energy.  Matter  is  first  supposed  to  have  been  ever  in  motion  and  then 
God  is  said  to  have  put  it  in  motion.  In  his  theory  of  movement 
matter  is  responsible  for  irregular  and  circular  movement,  and  God  is 

"  Je  vous  envois  enfin  ma  reponse  aux  objections  de  M.  Arnaut,  et  je  vous  prie  de  changer  les  choses 
suivantes  en  ma  Metapiiysique,  afin  qu'on  puisse  connaitre  par  la  que  j'ai  defere  a  son  jugement,  et 
ainsi  que  les  autres,  voyant  combien  je  suis  pret  a  suivre  conseil,  me  disent  plus  franchement  les  ra'sons 
qu'ils  auront  contre  moi.    Corr.,  Vol.  3,  p.  334. 

"Lavisse,  Op.  Cit.,  Vol.  Vi,  p.  356. 


42  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

responsible  for  movement  in  a  straight  line.  Into  the  cognition  theory 
God  is  introduced  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  external  world,  while 
the  validity  of  our  ideas  was  first  proved  by  the  argument  that  there 
can  be  no  idea  without  an  external  object  as  its  cause.  There  are 
innumerable  other  instances  where  God  is  introduced  without  giving 
additional  weight  to  the  theories.  The  very  problems  of  the  Medita- 
tions are  only  additional  arguments,  which  do  not  contribute  anything 
to  clearing  up  Descartes's  philosophical  position.  At  best  they  only 
testify  that  Descartes  was  a  pious  man. 

Nevertheless,  the  objections  made  to  his  philosophy  were  from  the 
point  of  view  of  contradiction  to  religion  and  its  dogmas.  Descartes 
pointed  in  vain  to  the  fact  that  his  philosophy  was  in  accord  with  the 
determinations  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  equally  vainly  asserted 
that  he  believed  what  he  wrote. ^^  Despite  the  fact  that  his  first  pub- 
lished works  were  those  which  were  supposed  to  testify  to  his  ortho- 
doxy, his  philosophy  met  with  severe  opposition.  When  Descartes 
thought,  perhaps,  to  please  the  orthodox  leaders  by  his  attempt  to  give 
a  rational  demonstration  of  matters  of  faith,  he  only  provoked  them  by 
his  failure  to  justify  faith  by  reason,  which  the  keen  eye  of  the  theo- 
logians detected  at  once.  His  denial  of  authority  and  tradition  and 
the  search  for  a  criterion  of  truth  was  unorthodox  both  from  the  Pro- 
testant and  the  Catholic  points  of  view.  The  Protestants  saw  in  his 
philosophy  skepticism,  atheism,  destruction  of  the  state  and  the  Uni- 
versity; the  Catholics  saw  Protestantism,  the  most  persecuted  heresy, 
evidently,  in  the  conformity  of  his  theory  of  extension  to  the  Calvin- 
istic  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  and  in  the  many  points 
of  resemblance  to  St.  Augustine.  Moreover,  his  method  of  examination 
was  found  to  resemble  that  of  the  Jansenists,  and  his  philosophy  was, 
thus,  associated  with  Jansenism.  It  was  also  found  to  contain  elements 
of  Pelagianism.^^  His  theory  of  particles  brought  upon  him  the 
accusation  of  following  Democritus.  Furthermore,  the  doctrine  of 
the  motion  of  the  earth  was  heretical. 

His  most  pronounced  opponents  on  the  side  of  the  Protestants  were, 
in  Utrecht,  Voetius, a  minister  and  theologian,  and  in  Leyden,  the  whole 
faculty  of  theology,  with  Revius  and  Triglandius,  first  professor  of 
theology  and  a  former  minister,  at  the  head,  and  in  Groningue,  Scho- 
kius,  a  disciple  of  Voetius.  Voetius  and  Triglandius  worked  very 
ardently  to  destroy  Descartes's  philosophy.  They  aroused  all  the 
professors  of  the  theological  faculty  against  him  and  tried  to  form  a 
sort  of  league  to  oppress  him  by  all  manner  of  "calumnies."  They 
resorted  to  all  available  means  in  order  to  arouse  the  synod  and  the 

18  Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  349.      "  Con.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  S44- 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL  43 

magistrates  against  his  teachings  as  against  doctrines  dangerous  to  the 
university  and  to  the  state.  Triglandius  found  Descartes's  Medita- 
tions a  "these  dangereuse,  these  toute  nouvelle  et  contraire  a  Aris- 
tote."  ^^  Voetius  wrote  seven  theses  against  Descartes  which  he  tried 
to  pubHsh  under  different  names  in  different  places,  so  as  to  make  it 
appear  that  Descartes  had  many  opponents  in  many  places.  The 
three  corollaries  which  he  added  to  his  theses  illustrate  how  Descartes's 
philosophy  was  criticized,  and  what  was  most  effective  in  those  days  in 
creating  enemies  of  new  thought.  They  were  directed  against  an 
atheist,  by  whom  Voetius  meant  Descartes,  whose  name  he  did  not 
mention,  however.  These  corollaries  state  that  the  opinions  held  by  the 
atheist  Taurellus  and  David  Gorlaus,  concerning  the  fact  that  man  being 
composed  of  body  and  soul  is  an  accidental  being  and  not  a  being  in 
itself,  are  erroneous;  that  the  theory  of  the  movement  of  the  earth 
introduced  by  Kepler  and  others,  is  directly  and  evidently  opposed  to 
the  authority  of  the  Holy  Scripture  and  does  not  agree  with  the 
philosophy  thus  far  taught;  a  philosophy  which  rejects  the  substan- 
tiality of  form  or  of  qualities,  as  maintained  by  the  atheists  Taurellus, 
Gorlaus,  and  Bacon,  does  not  agree  with  the  physics  of  Moses  nor  with 
anything  else  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Such  a  philosophy  is  favorable 
to  skepticism  and  is  very  dangerous,  for  it  is  enough  to  destroy  the 
belief  in  a  rational  soul,  in  the  procession  of  the  divine  persons  in  the 
Trinity,  in  the  Incarnation  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  original  sin,  in  miracles, 
in  prophecies,  in  the  grace  of  regeneration,  and  in  the  real  possession  of 
demons.  Such  reasons  brought  against  a  new  philosophy  were  enough 
to  arouse  hatred,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  mercy,  against  it.  Descartes 
even  feared  being  brought  before  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal.  His 
repeated  requests  addressed  to  the  curators  of  the  academies  in  Utrecht 
and  in  Leyden  were  without  results.  He  even  thought  at  one  time  of 
leaving  the  province.  As  soon  as  he  got  rid  of  one  enemy  he  was 
attacked  by  another.  Only  a  few  days  after  his  public  triumph, 
through  the  thesis  of  Regius,  his  disciple,  over  an  attack  in  Utrecht,  he 
was  again  attacked  in  another  thesis  of  the  College  of  Clermont. 

In  view  of  all  the  objections  brought  against  him,  Descartes  in 
despair  exclaimed  that  the  state  of  affairs  was  such  that  one  should 
not  reason  at  all  or  at  least  publicly  declare  that  the  theologians  have 
a  right  to  falsify  statements  made  by  others. ^^  A  public  declaration 
against  the  theologians  could  hardly  have  been  expected  from  Des- 
cartes or  even  from  a  more  courageous  person  than  he,  at  a  time  when 

i^Corr..  Vol.  IV,  p.  633- 

1'  "L'affaire  est  maintenant  en  tel  point,  qu'il  est  necessaire  qu'on  ne  fasse  raison,  ou  bien  qu'on 
declare  publiquement  que  Messieurs  vos  Theologiens  ont  droit  de  mentir  et  de  calomnier,  sans  que  les 
personnes  de  ma  sorte  en  puissent  aucunement  avoir  justice  en  ce  pays."    Corr.,  Vol.  V,  p.  42. 


44  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

the  theologians  occupied  such  a  prominent  place.  To  stop  reasoning 
was  for  Descartes  equally  hard .  He ,  therefore ,  kept  firmly  to  his  decision 
to  be  masked  before  the  world,  a  decision  with  which  he  had  entered 
his  philosophical  career,  as  is  evident  from  the  following  remark  in  his 
memoirs  of  1619:  "Comme  un  acteur  met  un  masque  pour  ne  pas 
laisser  voir  la  rougeur  de  son  front;  de  meme,  moi  qui  vait  monter  sur 
le  theatre  de  ce  monde  ou  je  n'ai  ete  jusqu'ici  que  spectateur,  je 
parais  masque  sur  la  scene."  ^°  The  consequence  of  this  is  that  we  do 
hot  have  Descartes's  philosophy  openly  expressed  in  its  true  character. 
His  free  and  radical  thoughts,  which  he  cherished  as  a  progressive  of 
his  day,  are  always  veiled  in  conservative  covers.  Knowing  that  the 
"main  reason  for  rejecting  .  .  .  novelties  in  matters  of  philosophy 
was  the  fear  lest  any  changes  be  caused  thereby  in  theology,"  ^^  he 
tried  to  hide  the  novelty  of  his  philosophy,  carefully  introducing  into 
his  system  as  much  of  the  old  orthodox  doctrines  as  would  overshadow 
the  new,  and  present  at  least  the  appearance  of  the  "most  ancient 
(thought)  ever  introduced  into  the  world  and  of  the  most  vulgar  ever 
taught  there."  ^^  He  never  freely  and  openly  expressed  what  he  con- 
sidered to  be  the  truth  of  the  case,  but  always  observed,  rather,  a 
double  policy.  He  wrote  and  published  books  both  for  the  "glory  of 
God"  and  for  the  benefit  of  mankind.  He  concluded  his  Principles 
with  an  appeal  both  to  the  authority  of  the  church  and  to  reason.^^ 
His  explanations  for  not  having  treated  final  causes,  questions  of  mor- 
als, or  different  problems  of  orthodox  metaphysics  are  such  as  to  satisfy 
both  the  scientific  and  the  religious  mind.  Thus  he  explained  his 
neglect  to  investigate  final  causes  on  the  one  hand  by  the  fact  that 
final  causes  do  not  explain  anything  in  nature,  and  on  the  other,  that 
it  is  audacious  to  attempt  to  penetrate  God's  wisdom.  One- reason  for 
not  treating  the  question  of  good  and  evil  is  that  this /question  is  ex- 
cluded from  his  philosophy  as  a  problem  of  theology,  and  the  other  is 
"il  n'appartient  qu'aux  Souverains,  ou  a  ceux  qui  sont  authorises  par 
eux,  de  se  meler  de  regler  les  moeurs  des  autres."  ^*  Would  we  not 
exclaim,  what  a  contradiction  to  his  fundamental  view  of  conduct,  if 
we  did  not  know  that  it  was  one  of  the  rules  of  the  monarchy  which 
later,  according  to  a  royal  declaration  of  1683,  was  even  to  be  taught  in 

20  Pensee,  p.  3,  Oeuvres  inedites,  Foucher  de  Careil. 
"  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  455- 

22  "J'ai  tenement  compose  mes  Principes,  qu'on  peut  dire  qu'ils  ne  sont  point  du  tout  contraires 
a  la  Philosophie  commune,  mais  seulement  qu'ils  I'ont  enrichie  de  plusieurs  choses  qui  n'y  etaient  pas." 
Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  225. 

23  "Je  soumets  toutes  mes  opinions  au  jugement  des  plus  sages  et  a  I'autorite  de  I'Eglise.  Meme  je 
prie  les  Lecteurs  de  n'ajouter  point  du  tout  de  foi  a  tout  ce  qu'ils  trouveront  ici  ecrit,  mais  seulement 
de  I'examiner  et  n'en  recevoir  que  ce  que  la  force  et  I'evidence  de  la  raison  les  pourra  contraindre  de 
croire."    Principes,  Part.  IV,  §  207,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX. 

2<  Corr,  Vol.  V,  p.  87. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       45 

all  colleges  ?  If  it  does  not  further  explain  or ,  rather,  contradict  his  view 
of  morality,  it  testifies,  at  least,  to  the  fact  that  Descartes  was  a  loyal 
subject  of  his  country.  Most  characteristic  of  this  double  tendency  is 
the  following  expression  of  his  principles:  "A  savoir  je  ne  doute  point 
que  le  monde  n'est  ete  cre6  au  commencement  avec  autant  de  perfection 
qu'il  en  a  .  .  .  mais  neanmoins,  comme  on  connaitrait  beaucoup 
mieux  qu'elle  a  ete  la  nature  d'Adam  et  celle  des  arbres  du  Paradis,  si  on 
avait  examine  comment  les  enfants  se  forment  peu  a  peu  au  ventre  des 
meres,  et  comment  les  plantes  sortent  de  leurs  semences,  que  si  on  avait 
seulement  considere  quels  ils  ont  ete  quand  Dieu  les  a  crees :  tout  de 
meme,  nous  ferons  mieux  entendre  qu'elle  est  generalement  la  nature  de 
toutes  les  choses  qui  sont  au  monde,  si  nous  pouvons  imaginer  quelques 
principes  qui  soient  fort  intelligibles  et  fort  simples,  desquels  nous  f acions 
voir  clairement  que  les  astres  et  la  terre,  et  enfin  tout  le  monde  visible 
aurait  pu  etre  produit  ainsi  que  de  quelques  semences,  bien  que  nous 
sachions  qu'il  n'a  pas  ete  produit  en  cette  fagon ;  que  si  nous  la  decrivions 
seulement  comme  il  est,  ou  bien  comme  nous  croyons  qu'il  a  ete  cree.  Et 
parce  que  je  pense  avoir  trouvedes  principes  qui  sont  tels,  je  tacherai  ici 
de  les  expliquer."  ^^  Another  characteristic  expression  can  be  quoted  on 
this  point:  "  Je  desire  que  ce  que  j'ecrirai  soit  seulement  pris  pour  une 
hypothese,  laquelle  est  peut-etre  fort  eloignee  de  la  verite;  mais  encore 
que  cela  fut,  je  croirai  avoir  beaucoup  fait,  si  toutes  les  choses  qui  en 
seront  deduites,  sont  entierement  conformes  aux  experiences."  ^^ 

The  results  of  his  research,  whose  novelty  appears  even  through  the^ 
cover  of  the  conservatism  with  which  it  was  veiled,  were  hidden  from 
the  world  until  after  Descartes's  death.  His  Le  Monde  never  saw  the 
day  in  its  original  form;  his  natural  philosophy,  as  he  himself  said,  was 
killed  even  before  its  birth. ^''^  He  wrote  Le  Monde  in  the  days  when  he 
looked  only  to  experience  to  justify  what  he  had  reasoned  out  on  the 
basis  of  observations.  He  was  about  to  publish  it  when  he  heard  of 
the  condemnation  of  Galileo.  After  that  nothing  could  make  him 
give  his  work  to  the  public.  If  the  movement  of  the  earth  was  declared 
heretical,  he  foresaw  the  same  fate  for  his  Le  Monde  in  which  he  had  es- 
sentially accepted  the  Copernican  theory.  Moreover,  his  explanation  of 
things  in  Le  Monde  were  so  interconnected  that  the  rejection  of  this 
theory,  he  thought,  would  lead  to  the  rejection  of  the  whole. ^^    The 

25  Principes,  Part.  Ill,  §  45;  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX.     ^  Principes,  Part.  Ill,  p.  123,  Oeuvres,  Vol.  IX. 

2'  Void  enfin  les  principes  de  cette  malheureuse  Philosophie,  que  quelques  uns  ont  tache  d'etouflfer 
avantsa  naissance.    Lettres,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  107,  Ed.  Clerselier. 

28  "Vous  savez  sans  doute  que  Galilee  a  ete  repris  depuis  peu  par  les  Inquisiteurs  de  la  Foi,  et  que  son 
opinion  touchant  le  mouvement  de  la  Terre  a  ete  condamnee  comme  heretique.  Or  je  vous  dirai  que  toutes 
les  choses  que  j'expliquerais  en  mon  Traite,  entre  lesquelles  etaitaussi  cette  opinion  du  mouvement  de  la 
Terre,  dependaient  tellement  les  unes  des  autres,  que  c'est  assez  de  savoir  qu'il  y  en  ait  une  qui  soit  fausse, 
pour  connaitre  que  toutes  les  raisons  dont  je  me  servais  n'ont  point  de  force."  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  285. 


46  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

news  of  Galileo's  condemnation  so  frightened  him  that  in  the  first 
moment  of  excitement  he  decided  to  burn  the  papers  of  his  treatise, 
and  then  firmly  resolved  not  to  let  anybody  see  them.^^  He  refused 
even  to  send  his  treatise  to  his  friend  Mersenne  to  whom  he  had  some 
time  before  promised  it.  At  the  latter's  repeated  admonitions  he  asked 
him  again  and  again  for  some  extension  of  time  in  order  to  revise  and 
polish  it.^"  It  was,  evidently,  at  this  time  that  he  took  up  the  recon- 
ciliation of  his  physics  with  the  biblical  account  of  Genesis.  The  result 
is  that  Le  Monde  contains  biblical  expressions  which  have  no  connection 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  physics.  That  these  biblical 
expressions  are  later  insertions  is  beyond  doubt.  It  is  confirmed  by  the 
fact  that  the  letter  in  which  Descartes  proposed  to  take  up  a  recon- 
ciliation of  theology  and  his  physics  ^^  dates  from  1641,  while  his 
\Le  Monde  was  already  completed  in  1633.2' 

But  even  this  remodelled  form  with  its  air  of  piety,  he  evidently 
found  not  orthodox  enough  for  the  pious  minds  of  his  day.  It  was  im- 
possible to  rewrite  it  so  that  some  one  would  not  find  fault  with  it. 
"  Je  ne  puis  si  bien  faire  que  certains  gens  ne  trouvent  occasion  de  me 
reprendre."  No  correction  could  save  Le  Monde  from  the  heresy  in 
which  it  was  immersed.  He  saw  no  salvation  for  it  unless  the  funda- 
mental thesis,  the  movement  of  the  earth,  was  crossed  out,  but  this 
could  not  be  done,  for  the  exclusion  of  this  theory  would  have  destroyed 
the  whole. 2^  He,  therefore,  refrained  from  publication  and  for  this 
reason  only,  as  he  explained,  "rien  ne  m'a  empeche  jusques  ici  de  pub- 
lier  ma  Philosophic,  que  la  defense  du  mouvement  de  la  Terre,  lequel 
je  n'en  saurais  separer,  a  cause  que  toute  ma  Physique  en  depend. "^^ 
He  decided  not  to  give  it  to  the  world  until  minds  were  more  mature. 
There  are  fruits,  he  said  in  one  of  his  letters,  which  have  to  be  left  on 
the  tree  to  ripen ;  his  Le  Monde  is  one  of  those  fruits  for  the  picking  of 

"  "Je  m'etais  propose  de  vous  envoyer  mon  Monde  pour  ces  etrennes;  mais  je  vous  dirai,  que  m'etant 
fait  enquerir  ces  jours  a  Leyde  et  a  Amsterdam,  si  le  Syslime  du  Monde  de  Galilee  n'y  etait  point, 
on  m'a  mande  qu'il  etait  vrai  qu'il  avait  ete  imprime,  mais  que  tous  les  exemplaires  en  avaient  ete 
brflles  a  Rome  au  meme  temps,  et  lui  condamne  a  quelque  amende:  ce  qui  m'a  si  fort  etonne,  que  je 
me  suis  quasi  resolu  de  brdler  tous  mes  papiers,  ou  du  moins  de  ne  les  laisser  voir  a  personne."  Corr., 
Vol.  I,  p.  270. 

*>  "Toutefois,  parce  que  j'aurais  mauvaise  grace,  si  apres  vous  avoir  tout  promis,  et  si  longtemps, 
je  pensais  vous  payer  ainsi  d'une  boutade,  je  ne  laisserai  pas  de  vous  faire  voir  ce  que  j'ai  fait  le  plus  t6t 
que  je  pourrai;  mais  je  vous  demande  encore,  s'il  vous  plait,  un  an  delai  pour  le  revoir  et  le  polir."  Corr., 
Vol.  I,  p.  272. 

31  By  his  Physics  he  may  also  have  meant  his  Principles  which  in  fact  represents  a  combination  of 
Le  Monde  and  the  Genesis. 

'2  "II  n'y  aura,  ce  me  semble,  aucune  difficulte  d'accommoder  la  Theologie  a  ma  fagon  de  philosopher; 
car  je  n'y  vols  rien  a  changer  que  pour  la  Transubstantiation.  Et  je  serai  oblige  de  I'expliquer  en  ma 
Physique,  avec  le  premier  chapitre  de  la  genese."    Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  295. 

''  "Je  confesse  que  s'il  (le  mouvement  de  la  terre)  est  faux,  tous  les  fondements  de  ma  Philosophic  le 
sont  aussi,  car  il  se  demontre  par  eux  evidemment.  Et  il  est  tellement  he  avec  toutes  les  parties  de 
mon  Traite,  que  je  ne  Ten  saurais  detacher,  sans  rendre  le  reste  tout  defectueux."    Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  271. 

s«  Corr..  Vol.  Ill,  p.  258. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  47 

which  no  time  will  be  too  late.^"'^  We  have  his  repeated  assertions  that 
the  state  of  affairs  at  that  time  kept  him  from  publishing  this  most 
valuable  work.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Pollot  he  writes:  "Si  tons  les 
hommes  6taient  de  I'humeur  que  je  vous  crois,  je  vous  assure  que  je 
n'aurais  nullement  delibere  touchant  la  publication  de  mon  Monde,  et 
que  je  I'aurais  fait  imprimer  il  y  a  deja  plus  de  deux  ans."  ^^  In  another 
letter,  written  in  answer  to  the  questions  put  to  him  concerning  his 
belief  as  to  the  reality  of  the  quality  of  weight  or  the  attraction  of  the 
earth,  he  said:  "Je  ne  saurais  expliquer  mon  opinion  sur  toutes  ces 
choses,  qu'en  faisant  voir  mon  Monde  avec  le  mouvement  defendu, 
ce  que  je  juge  maintenant  hors  de  saison."^'' 

He  was  firm  in  his  resolution  not  to  publish  his  Le  Monde  until  con- 
ditions should  have  changed.  The  repeated  requests  of  his  friends  to 
give  it  to  the  world,  and  reproaches  for  keeping  the  fruits  of  his  studies 
to  himself,  could  not  make  him  change  this  decision;  "Sinon  que,  les 
causes  qui  m'en  ont  empeche  ci-devant  n'etant  point  changees,  je  ne 
dois  pas  changer  de  resolution,"  he  wrote  to  Mersenne.^^  He  preferred 
to  suppress  his  most  valuable  production  rather  than  to  have  the 
church  against  him,  as  he  declared:  "...  comme  je  ne  voudrais  pour 
rien  du  monde  qu'il  sortit  demoiundiscours,ou  il  se  trouvat  le  moindre 
mot  qui  f fit  desapprouve  de  I'Eglise,  aussi  aime-je  mieux  le  supprimer, 
que  de  le  faire  paraitre  estropie."  ^^  It  is  probable  that  at  that  tlm^^ 
he  destroyed  those  of  his  works  which  are  irretrievably  lost.  For 
Galileo's  condemnation  seems  to  have  very  much  impressed  him.  He 
was  anxious  to  find  out  the  exact  cause  of  Galileo's  condemnation,  and 
kept  on  asking  Mersenne  to  let  him  know  whatever  he  might  happen 
to  hear  concerning  this  matter. *°  After  this  event  he  closely  followed 
the  literature  for  and  against  the  movement  of  the  earth,  *^  and 

'5  "Comme  on  laisse  les  fruits  sur  les  arbres  aussi  longtemps  qu'ils  y  peuvent  devenir  meilleurs,  non- 
obstant  qu'on  sache  bien  que  les  vents  et  la  grele,  et  plusieurs  autres  hasards,  les  peuvent  perdre  k 
chaque  moment  qu'ils  y  demeurent,  ainsi  je  crois  que  mon  Monde  est  de  ces  fruits  qu'on  doit  laisser 
mOrir  sur  I'arbre,  et  qui  ne  peuvent  trop  tard  etre  cueillis."    Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  SS2. 

»  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  518 

"  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  324. 

»  Corr..  Vol.  II,  p.  565. 

"  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  271. 

<"  "Puisque  vous  avez  vu  le  livre  de  Galilee,  je  vous  prie  aussi  de  me  mander  ce  qu'il  contient  et  quels 
vous  jugez  avoir  ete  les  motifs  de  sa  condemnation."    Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  298. 

Descartes's  confused  description  of  the  laws  of  motion  is  ascribed  by  Henry  More,  in  his  Antidote 
against  Atheism,  of  1712,  directly  to  Galileo's  condemnation.  "I  can  not  but  observe,"  he  says,  "the 
inconvenience  this  eternal  force  and  fear  does  to  the  Common  Wealth  of  Learning,  and  how  many  inno- 
cent well-deserving  young  Wits  have  been  put  upon  the  Rack,  as  well  as  Galileo  into  Prison.  For  this 
frightened  Descartes  into  such  a  distorted  description  of  Motion,  that  no  man's  reason  could  make 
good  sense  of  it,  nor  Modesty  permit  him  to  fancy  anything  Nonsense  in  so  excellent  an  Author." 
Preface,  p.  xi. 

«  "Je  vous  prie  de  me  mander  le  nom  de  ce  traite,  que  vous  dites  avoir  ete  fait  depuis  par  un  eccle- 
siastique,  pour  prouver  le  mouvement  de  la  terre,  au  moins  s'il  est  imprime,  et  s'il  ne  Test  pas,  je  pourrais 
peut-etre  bien  donner  quelque  avis  a  I'auteur  qui  ne  lui  serait  pas  inutile."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VI,  p.  263, 
Ed.  Cousin. 


48  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

betook  himself  to  a  revision  of  whatever  he  thought  contained  illegal 
statements,  suggestive  of  favoring  the  belief  in  the  movement  of  the 
earth. "2 

The  attitude  of  the  learned  of  the  school  towards  his  works  dis- 
couraged him  to  such  an  extent  that  at  first  he  did  not  want  to  publish 
anything  at  all  except  his  five  or  six  sheets  concerning  the  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God,  declaring,  "Je  ne  sais  point  de  loi  qui  m'oblige  k 
donner  au  monde  des  choses  qu'il  temoigne  ne  point  desirer."  That 
there  were  quite  a  few  sympathizers  encouraged  him  little  when  he 
thought  of  the  fact  that  these  were  helpless  while  his  enemies  had  all 
the  power  in  their  hands. ^^ 


The  checking  influence  which  the  circumstances  of  that  time  had  on 
Descartes  will  be  better  understood  through  a  consideration  of  his 
personality.  His  aristocratic  birth  and  education  contributed  a  good 
deal  to  the  conservatism  which  we  find  in  his  works  despite  their 
promising  outset.  Descartes  descended  from  an  old  aristocratic  family 
and  probably  inherited  many  prejudices  and  traditions  characteristic 
of  the  nobility.  His  nearest  relatives  on  both  sides  were  engaged  either 
in  military  or  civil  service,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
narrow-mindedness  usually  found  among  the  bureaucracy  had  not 
affected  the  minds  of  his  relatives  also.  Descartes's  father  was  by 
profession  a  lawyer  and  held  a  position  as  state  counselor.  Both  his 
profession  and  his  position  were  such  as  to  make  him  conservative. 
Of  his  three  children,  only  Rene  Descartes  was  at  all  radical.  His  other 
son,  a  lawyer,  was  a  conservative  gentleman  to  whom  anything  beyond 
interest  in  the  politics  of  local  affairs  seemed  eccentricity.  There  is 
nothing  extraordinary  known  about  his  daughter  and  we  can  only 
suppose  that  she  belonged  to  the  ladies  of  "good  society"  who  measured 
thought  and  actions  by  what  was  accepted.  Thus,  his  close  family 
circle  presented  no  opportunity  for  the  development  of  a  radicalism 
in  Descartes. 

The  education  which  he  received  in  college  was  favorable  to  con- 
serving traditions  and  prejudices  imbibed  in  childhood.    He  spent  nine 

*2  "Pour  les  lunettes,  je  vous  dirai  que  depuis  la  condemnation  de  Galilee,  j'ai  revu  et  entierement 
acheve  le  Traite  que  j'en  avais  autrefois  commence."    Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  322. 

"  "Et  si  quelques-uns  le  desirent,  sachez  que  tous  ceux  qui  font  les  doctes  sans  I'etre,  et  qui  preferent 
leur  vanite  a  la  verite,  ne  le  veulent  point,  et  que  pour  une  vingtaine  d'approbateurs  qui  ne  me  feraient 
aucun  bien,  il  y  aurait  des  milliers  de  malveillants  qui  ne  s'epargneraient  pas  de  me  nuire,  quand  ils  en 
auraient  I'occasion.  C'est  que  I'experience  m'a  fait  connaitre  depuis  trois  ans,  et  quoique  je  ne  me 
repente  point  de  ce  que  j'ai  fait  imprimer,  j'ai  toutefois  si  peu  d'envie  d'y  retourner,  que  je  ne  le  veux 
pas  meme  laisser  imprimer  en  latin,  autant  que  je  le  pourrai  empecher."  Oeuvres,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  208, 
Ed.  Cousin. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL  49 

years  of  his  youth  as  a  resident  pupil  in  a  Jesuit  college  which  was 
established  primarily  for  the  nobility.  The  course  of  study  in  such  a 
Jesuit  college  looked  toward  a  clerical  vocation,  and  the  instruction 
was  conducted  accordingly.  The  first  two  years  of  the  college  period 
were  devoted  mainly  to  spiritual  exercises.  The  piety  implanted  in 
him  at  college  did  not  abandon  him;  it  manifested  itself  in  later  years 
in  the  observation  of  religious  customs.'*^  The  Jesuit  college,  as  an 
institution  which  was  protected  by  the  Pope  and  the  state,  had  as  its 
chief  aim  to  develop  in  the  students  a  spirit  of  loyalty  to  the  king 
and  to  the  Pope  and  submission  to  all  established  authority.  The 
discipline  of  the  college,  which  required  censoring  the  letters  of  the 
pupils  and  allowed  only  witnessed  interviews  with  their  relatives  and 
friends,  could  not  but  influence  a  mind  even  less  impressionable  than 
Descartes's.  Descartes,  whom  the  spirit  of  radicalism  had  not  yet 
affected,  and  in  whom  the  critical  spirit  was  not  yet  fully  developed, 
became  very  fond  of  his  masters.  Moreover,  since  he  had  very  early 
lost  his  mother  and  had  been  separated  from  his  father  through  the 
latter's  second  marriage,  he  was  probably  not  spoiled  with  too  much 
attention  in  his  childhood,  and  was,  therefore,  very  grateful  for  all  the 
attention  that  he  enjoyed  in  the  college.  The  fact  that  he  was  a 
privileged  student,  one  of  those  for  whom  Henry  IV  had  erected  the 
college,  and  also  that  he  was  inquisitive  and  had  a  love  for  study, 
had  disposed  the  instructors  and  the  rector  of  the  college  in  his  favor. 
The  latter,  also  considering  Descartes's  weak  health,  granted  to  him 
little  privileges  for  which  Descartes  felt  grateful  all  his  life.  As  he  was 
of  a  very  impressionable  disposition,  the  love  for  his  masters  and 
teachers  inoculated  in  childhood  lasted  into  his  later  years,  and  he 
felt  embarrassed  when  he  saw  that  he  could  no  longer  accept  what  they 
had  taught  him,  and  that  the  deviation  from  their  teachings  might 
lead  to  a  break  of  the  friendly  relations  with  them.^^  Nay,  this  respect 
for  his  educators  and  their  teachings  was  so  deeply  rooted  in  him  that 
it  really  was  a  hard  struggle  for  Descartes  to  utter  things  which  he 
clearly  saw  his  benefactors  could  not  approve.  The  Jesuits  thus  played 
a  considerable  part  in  the  development  of  his  intellectual  life.  They 
had  a  double  influence  on  him:  in  his  childhood  through  their  educa- 
tion whose  spirit  of  conservatism  had  left  ineradicable  traces,  and  in 
later  life  through  their  influential  position  in  France  which  made  him 

**  "On  the  occasion  of  a  startling  dream  he  decided  to  go  to  Italy  "pour  former  le  vceu  d'un  pelerinage 
a  Notre-Dame  de  Lorette."    Baillet,  La  vie  de  M.  Des  Caries. 

^  "Car,  ayant  de  tres  grandes  obligations  a  ceux  de  votre  Compagnie,  et  particulierement  a  vous,  qui 
m'avez  tenu  lieu  de  Pere  pendant  tout  le  temps  de  ma  jeunesse,  je  serai  extremement  marri  d'etre  mal 
avec  aucun  des  membres  dent  vous  etes  le  Chef  au  regard  de  la  France.  Ma  propre  inclination, 
et  la  consideration  de  mon  devoir,  me  porte  a  desirer  passionement  leur  amitie."  Corr.,  Vol.  IV, 
p.  156. 


50  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

fear  to  be  declared  heretical  by  them.    The  love  for  his  masters  he  could 
have  more  easily  overcome  than  his  fear  of  them. 

Descartes  was,  like  many  aristocrats,  a  gentleman  of  settled  habits, 
to  whom  the  quietude  and  comforts  of  his  private  life  meant  a  great 
deal.  He  would  not  tolerate  the  least  disturbance  in  the  ways  and 
habits  of  his  daily  life.  He  excused  himself  in  a  letter  to  M.  Pollot  for 
having  left  without  a  good-bye,  advancing  the  fact  that,  upon  leaving 
the  Princess  de  Boheme  he  saw  two  or  three  men  approaching  whom  he 
heard  mentioning  his  name.  For  fear  that  they  might  stop  him  and  keep 
him  in  conversation  over  the  hour  at  which  he  was  used  to  going  to  bed, 
he  retired  as  quickly  as  possible.'*^  One  of  his  main  reasons  for  living  a 
life  of  retirement  in  the  northern  corner  of  Holland  was  to  avoid  incon- 
veniences caused  by  Parisian  social  life,  the  inconveniences  of  being 
disturbed  by  his  neighbors.'*^  Moreover,  he  was  in  childhood  of  a  very 
weak  constitution.  He  had  inherited,  he  tells  us,  a  dry  cough  and  a 
pale  complexion.  His  health  was,  therefore,  very  tenderly  cared  for 
at  home  and  in  school,  and,  though  at  the  age  of  twenty  he  was  cured  of 
this  inherited  weakness,  he  seemed  to  have  acquired  the  habit  of  always 
being  very  mindful  of  his  health.  In  every  undertaking  his  health 
always  found  first  consideration.  Believing  that  the  passing  from  one 
extreme  to  the  other  to  be  most  dangerous  to  the  health,  he  was 
careful  to  avoid  abrupt  changes.  He,  therefore,  before  going  to 
Holland  went  first  to  a  retired  northern  place  in  France  in  order  to  get 
used  to  a  colder  climate  and  to  the  life  of  solitude.  Invited  to  Sweden, 
he  looked  for  the  season  which  would  make  the  journey  most  pleasant 
to  him  who  had  lived  so  many  years  in  retirement.  The  chief  aim  of 
his  medical  studies  was  the  preservation  of  his  health  and  the  pro- 
longation of  his  life.  Health  and  happiness  meant  to  him  "les  deux 
principaux  biens  qu'on  puisse  avoir  en  cette  vie."  In  his  anxiety  for 
the  preservation  of  his  health  he  valued  peace  and  rest  more  than 
anything  else  in  the  world,  "  .  .  .  ma  surete  et  mon  repos  . 
sont  les  biens  que  j'estimele  plus  aUmonde  .  .  ,  "  48  His  life  motto, 
therefore,  was  ''bene  vixit,  bene  qui  lahdt."  *^ 

This  love  for  peace  and  rest  explains  his  extreme  caution.  Nothing 
could  move  him  to  change  his  decision  not  to  publish  Le  Monde  when 
he  saw  his  tranquillity  threatened.  His  desire  for  quietude  was  stronger 
than  his  belief  that  everybody  is  bound  by  duty  to  publish  his  contri- 
butions for  the  benefit  of  others  and  for  the  advancement  of  science. 
Nor  did  he  regret  the  loss  of  time  in  the  vain  labor  of  composing  a 
work  which  was  to  be  hidden  from  the  world, , if  its  being  hidden  was 

*6  Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  io6.  "  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  385-  **"* 

«  Corr..  Vol.  IV,  p.  SS-  "  Corr.,  Vol.  V,  p.  232. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       5I 

the  price  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  his  peace. ''^  At  the  instiga-  -' 
tion  of  his  friend  Mersenne,  he  promised  to  pubHsh  his  work  only  if  he 
would  not  have  to  sacrifice  thereby  the  peacefulness  which  he  en- 
joyed.^^  His  first  publications,  which  cost  him  his  tranquillity, 
had  made  his  vocation  distasteful  to  him.  "  Parce  que  je  n'ai  pas  eu  la 
meme  prudence  a  m'abstenir  d'ecrire,  je  n'ai  plus  tant  de  loisir  ni 
tant  de  repos  que  j'aurais,  si  j'eusse  eu  I'esprit  de  me  taire."  ^^  Though 
he  was  not  unmoved  by  success,  as  he  says,  he  nevertheless  preferred 
oblivion  to  unfavorable  criticism.  He  dreaded  reputation  more  than 
he  wished  for  it,  because  reputation  "to  some  extent  diminishes  one's 
liberty  and  leisure."  ^^  Liberty  and  leisure  meant  so  much  to  him 
that  no  monarch  was  rich  enough,  he  said,  to  buy  them  of  him.^* 
Paris,  where  the  reaction  was  very  strong,  offered  little  of  these  treas- 
ures. The  obstacles  which  his  philosophy  encountered  there  made  that 
capital  unpleasant  to  him.  He  confessed  to  Mersenne  that  he  did  not 
like  the  spirit  in  Paris  on  account  of  the  many  "divertissements"  of 
Parisian  life.^^  By  these  "divertissements"  he  may  have  meant  con- 
troversies which  had  been  going  on  there.  Being  reserved  and  timid 
by  nature,  he  shunned  all  struggles,  and  to  preserve  his  rest  and  quietude 
he  did  not  want  to  trouble  himself  much  in  fighting  for  the  truth. 
He  hesitated  to  publish  even  his  first  works  for  fear  of  getting  into 
controversies  which  he  found  were  plentiful  without  his.^®  If  his  works 
could  not  be  approved  without  opposition,  he  said,  he  had  rather  not 
publish  them  at  all,  as  he  hoped  that  if  "  the  truth  can  not  find  a  place 
in  France,  it  will  perhaps  not  fail  to  find  it  somewhere  else."  ^^ 

The  strict  censorship  in  France  was  one  of  the  reasons  which  made 
him  look  for  a  place  where  his  ideals  of  liberty  and  leisure  could  be 
better  realized.  Holland  was  then  the  freest  of  all  countries.  Liberalism/ 
had  spread  there  to  such  an  extent  that  freedom  of  thought  was  almost 
allowed.     This,  it  seems,  was  to  Descartes  the  place  of  abode  which 

50  "Le  desir  que  j'ai  de  vivre  en  repos  et  de  continuer  la  vie  que  j'ai  commencee  en  prenant  pour  ma 
devise  bene  vixit,  bene  qui  latuit,  fait  que  je  suis  plus  aise  d'etre  delivre  de  la  crainte  que  j'avais  d'acquerir 
plus  de  connaissances  que  je  ne  desire,  par  le  moyende  mon  Ecrit,  que  je  ne  suis  fache  d'avoir  perdu  le 
temps  et  la  peine  que  j'ai  employee  a  le  composer."    Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  285. 

"  "Si  je  le  puisse  faire  sans  mettre  au  hasard  la  tranquillity  dont  je  jouis.  C'est  pourquoi,  encore  que 
cela  n'arrive  pas  sitot."    Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  553. 

"  Letlres,  Vol.  I,^.  104,  Ed.  Clerselier. 

"  "Je  crains  plus  la  reputation  que  je  ne  la  desire,  estimant  qu'elle  diminue  toujours  en  quelquefagon 
la  liberte  et  le  loisir  de  ceu.x  qui  I'acquierent."    Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  136. 

'*  "La  liberte  et  le  loisir  .  .  .  lesquelles  deux  choses  je  possede  si  parfaitement,  et  les  estime  de  telle 
sorte,  qu'il  n'y  a  point  de  monarque  au  monde  qui  fut  assez  riche  pour  les  acheter  de  moi.  Cela  ne 
m'empechera  pas  d'achever  le  petit  traite  que  j'ai  commence;  mais  je  ne  desire  pas  qu'on  le  sache,  afin 
d'avoir  toujours  la  liberte  de  le  desavouer."    Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  136. 

"  "Pour  en  parler  entre  nous,  il  n'y  a  rien  qui  fut  plus  contraire  a  mes  desseins  que  I'air  de  Paris,  a 
cause  d'une  infinite  de  divertissements  qui  y  sont  inevitable."    Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  isi. 

"  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  271. 

s'  "Si  la  verite  ne  pent  trouver  place  en  France,  elle  ne  laissera  peut-etre  pas  d'en  trouver  ailleurs  et 
que  je  ne  m'en  mtits  pas  fort  en  peine."    Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  335. 


52  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

came  nearest  to  his  ideal.  "Quel  autre  lieu  pourrait-on  choisir  au 
reste  du  monde,  ou  toutes  les  commodites  de  la  vie,  et  toutes  les 
curiosites  qui  peuvent  etre  souhaitees  soient  si  faciles  a  trouver  qu'en 
celui-ci?  quel  autre  pays,  ou  Ton  puisse  jouir  d'une  liberte  si  entiere, 
ou  Ton  puisse  dormir  avec  moins  d'inquietude,  ou  il  y  ait  toujours  des 
armees  sur  pied,  expres  pour  nous  garder,  ou  les  impoisonnements,  les 
trahisons,  les  calomnies  soient  moins  connues,  et  ou  il  soit  demeure 
plus  de  reste  de  I'innocence  de  nos  aieux."  ^^  The  "calumnies"  of 
which  Descartes  speaks  here  are  the  accusations  of  heterodoxy 
which  rained  upon  him  from  all  sides  in  Paris,  but  which  he  did 
not  admit  as  just  objections  leaning  upon  the  orthodox  arguments  of 
his  philosophy.  Even  his  love  for  truth  retreated  where  his  rest  and 
comfort  were  concerned.  The  little  inconveniences  caused  by  the 
objections  after  the  very  first  publications  made  him  use  extreme  cau- 
tion to  avoid  further  disturbances.  He  took  all  care  to  make  sure 
before  the  publication  of  his  works  that  there  was  nothing  in  them  that 
might  arouse  suspicion  concerning  his  piety  or  his  loyalty  to  the  estab- 
lished order.  To  succeed  better  in  this  he  was  anxious  to  have  his 
works  read  and  criticized  by  prominent  theologians,  "afin  d'en  avoir 
leur  jugement,  et  apprendre  d'eux  ce  qui  sera  bon  d'y  changer,  corriger 
ou  ajouter,  avant  que  de  le  rendre  public."  *^  But  before  his  manu- 
scripts were  seen  by  any  one  else  they  went  through  the  hands  of  his 
friend  Mersenne,  a  keen  theologian,  Descartes,  however,  was  careful 
not  to  let  even  Mersenne  see  whatever  he  knew  was  too  heretical,  as, 
for  instance,  his  Le  Monde,  which,  he  saw,  could  not  be  hrought  up  to 
the  mark  of  the  orthodoxy  of  the  day.  Before  publishing  the  Medita- 
tions he  sent  around  through  Mersenne  copies  of  it  to  the  different 
theologians  of  the  Sorbonne.  He  was  anxious  to  get  the  approval  of 
the  Sorbonne  as  a  support  against  the  attacks  of  the  minor  ecclesiastics, 
being  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  time  had  not  yet  outgrown  authori- 
tative protections.  Even  he  who  felt  the  weight  of  an  argument  was 
afraid  to  acknowledge  it  before  he  was  sure  how  the  majority  would 
accept  it.^"^  To  escape  all  ecclesiastical  suspicion  he  dedicated  his 
Meditations  to  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne  ®^  and  was  later  very  disap- 

^^Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  204.  ff 

w  "J'ai  maintenant  entre  les  mains  un  Discours  .  .  .  il  contiendra  une  bonne  partie  de  la  Meta- 
physique.  Et  afin  de  le  mieux  faire,  mon  dessein  est  de  n'en  faire  imprimer  que  vingt  ou  trente  Exem- 
plaires,  pour  les  envoyer  aux  vingt  ou  trente  plus  savants  Theologiens  dont  je  pourrai  avoir  connaissance, 
afin  d'en  avoir  leur  jugement,  et  apprendre  d'eux  ce  qui  sera  bon  d'y  changer,  corriger  ou  ajouter,  avant 
que  de  le  rendre  public."    Corr.,  Vol.  II,  p.  622. 

™  "Je  croirais  etre  injuste,  si  je  desirais  qu'on  les  aprouvat  avant  qu'on  sache  comment  elles  seront 
regues  du  public."    Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  597. 

'1  "Je  le  dedierais  a  Messieurs  de  la  Sorbonne  en  general,  .  .  .  afin  de  les  prier  d'etre  mes  pro- 
tecteurs  en  la  cause  de  Dieu.  Car  je  vous  dirais  que  les  cavillations  du  Fere  Bourdin  m'ont  fait  resoudre 
a  me  mdnir  dorenavant  le  plus  que  je  pourrai,  de  I'autorite  d'autrui,  puisque  la  verite  est  si  peu  estim^e 
lorsqu'elle  est  toute  seule."    Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  184.  ' 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  53 

pointed  when  even  it  was  attacked;  "Celui  de  mes  livres  auquels  ils 
s'attaquent  est  adresse  a  Messieurs  les  Docteurs  de  la  Faculte  de 
Theologie  de  Paris,  et  il  a  ete  plus  d'un  manuscrit  entre  leur  main  pour 
etre  examine  avant  que  je  I'aie  fait  imprimer.  De  sorte  qu'il  ne  peut 
etre  soupgonne  de  contenir  aucune  chose  contre  la  Religion  Chretienne 
en  general  ni  contre  les  moeurs  .  .  .  "  For  the  same  reason  he 
points  in  his  Le  Monde,  which,  of  course,  he  first  intended  to  publish,  to 
the  fact  that  his  description  of  the  formation  and  growth  of  things  in 
the  world  is  only  the  play  of  his  imagination  with  no  intention  of 
explaining  things  in  the  real  world. ^^  The  same  is  repeated  in  the 
Principles  where  Le  Monde  is  practically  taken  over  and  which  is 
written  in  such  a  way  as  to  throw  sand  into  the  eyes  of  the  Inquisition, 
to  use  an  expression  of  Baillet.^^  To  hide  the  revolutionary  attempts 
of  his  Discourse,  stress  is  laid  on  the  biographical  sketch.  To  give 
assurance  of  his  innocent  intention  he  pointed  to  the  fact  that  he  named 
his  treatise  not  "Traite  de  la  Methode,  mais  Discoiirs  de  la  Methode, 
ce  qui  est  le  meme  que  Preface  ou  Avis  touchant  la  Methode,  pour 
montrer  que  je  n'ai  pas  dessein  de  I'enseigner,  mais  seulement  d'en 
parler."  *^ 

Descartes's  refusal  to  deal  with  questions  which  might  make  hfs 
enemies  suspicious  of  his  orthodoxy  or  his  loyalty  to  established  insti- 
tutions shows  that  while  his  love  for  truth  was  strong,  his  love  of  self 
was  stronger.  Arnauld  reproached  Descartes  for  not  treating  the  ques- 
tion of  error  in  the  pursuit  of  good  and  evil,  accusing  him  of  fear  of 
encountering  too  great  an  opposition.  That  this  was  a  weighty  reason 
he  himself  confessed,  declaring  that  he  declined  to  give  his  view  con- 
cerning morals  for  the  reason  that  ''Messieurs  les  Regents  de  Colleges 
sont  si  animes  contre  moi,a  cause  des  innocents  principes  de  Physique 
qu'ils  ont  vus,  et  tellement  en  colere  de  ce  qu'ils  n'y  trouvent  aucun 
pretexte  pour  me  calomnier,que,si  jetraitais  aprescela  de  la  Morale,  ils 
ne  me  laisseraient  aucun  repos."  ^^  The  fact  that  his  proof  of  the  exis- 
tence of  God  only  caused  him  to  be  accused  of  atheism  and  skepticism, 
made  him  fear  to  say  anything  concerning  the  soul  after  death  or  con- 
cerning the  question  in  how  far  we  have  to  love  life  and  to  fear  death, 
when  these  questions  were  put  to  him.  For,  he  complained,  it  was 
vain  for  him  to  have  opinions  which  conformed  most  closely  to  religion 
and  to  the  welfare  of  the  state,  since  his  opponents  tried  to  convince 

'2  "Et  mon  dessein  n'est  pas  d'expliquer,  comma  eux,  les  choses  qui  sont  en  effet  dans  le  vrai  monde; 
mais  seulement  d'en  feindre  un  a  plaisir,  dans  lequel  il  n'y  ait  rien  que  les  plus  grossiers  esprits  ne  soient 
capables  de  concevoir,  et  qui  puisse  toutefois  etre  cree  tout  de  meme  que  je  I'aurai  feint."  Le  Monde, 
Oeuires,  Vol.  XI,  p.  36. 

•5  A.  Baillet,  La  vie  de  M.  Des  Cartes,  Paris,  1691. 

^Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  349. 

»  Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  536. 


54  METAPHYSICS     OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

him  that  his  behefs  were  contrary  to  religion  and  to  the  state. ^*  The 
rear  of  unpleasant  experiences  which  the  opposition  of  the  Jesuits 
might  bring  him  restrained  him  from  openly  saying  many  a  thing 
which  he  considered  to  be  true.  Thus  he  declared  that  he  abstained 
from  directly  disproving  old  principles  through  the  consideration  of 
Father  Charlet,  head  of  the  Company  of  the  Jesuits  and  his  edu- 
cator, and  other  prominent  members,  his  friends.*^^  Another  statement 
of  his  affirmed  more  directly  that  the  Jesuits  contributed  a  good  deal 
toward  restraining  his  liberty  in  the  expression  of  his  thought:  "  Je  suis 
marri  de  la  mort  de  Pere  Eustache;  car  encore  que  cela  me  donne  plus 
de  liberte  de  faire  mes  Notes  sur  la  Philosophie,  j'eusse  toutefois  mieux 
aime  le  faire  par  sa  permission,  et  lui  vivant."  ^^  The  same  is  true  of 
the  school.  Though  his  philosophy  is  fundamentally  opposed  to  that 
of  the  school,  he  often  refrained  from  saying  things  which  were  against 
it  "  afin  de  n'insulter  point  ouvertement  a  pas  une  des  opinions  qui  sont 
regues  dans  les  ecoles."  We  hear,  in  a  letter  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth, 
of  a  treatise,  Traite  de  Verudition,  in  which  Descartes  for  a  similar 
reason  refrained  from  including  all  that  was  supposed  to  be  there, 
declaring  that  he  was  not  in  a  position  to  despise  the  enmity  of  the 
school.  Believing  that  the  enmity  even  of  an  ant  may  be  harmful,  or 
at  any  rate,  can  do  no  good,  he  was  greatly  concerned  with  gaining  the 
favorable  disposition  of  his  enemies  and  possible  persecutors.  We  hear 
him  repeatedly  addressing  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne  for  the  extension 
of  their  influence  in  his  favor.  He  conciliated  his  previous  teachers 
to  gain  their  protection  from  the  attacks  of  the  rest  of  the  Jesuits 
Nyhom  he  did  not  know.'''*  His  letters  to  his  teachers  are  full  of  gratitude 
and  express  appreciation  of  their  virtue  and  of  the  doctrines  taught 
by  them  which,  he  assured  them,  he  respected  even  at  the  time  of 
writing  these  letters.^"  But  these  expressions  of  gratitude  and  rever- 
se "Car  puisqu'un  Pere  Bourdin  a  cru  avoir  assez  de  sujet,  pour  m'accuser  d'etre  sceptique,  de  ce  que 
j'ai  refute  les  sceptiques;  et  qu'un  ministre  a  entrepris  de  persuader  que  j'etais  Athee,  sans  en  alleguer 
d'autre  raison,  sinon  que  j'ai  tache  de  prouver  I'existence  de  Dieu;  que  ne  diraient-ils  point,  si  j'entre- 
prenais  d'examiner  quelle  est  la  juste  valeur  de  toutes  les  choses  qu'on  peut  desirer  ou  craindre;  quel  sera 
I'etat  de  I'Ame  apres  la  mort;  jusques  ou  nous  devons  aimer  la  vie;  et  quels  nous  devons  etre,  pour 
n'avoir  aucun  sujet  d'en  craindre  la  perte?  J'aurais  beau  n'avoir  que  les  opinions  les  plus  conformes  a  la 
Religion,  et  les  plus  utiles  au  bien  de  I'Etat,  qui  puissent  etre,  ils  ne  laisseraient  pas  de  me  vouloir  faire  a 
croire  que  j'en  aurais  de  contraires  a  I'un  et  a  I'autre."    Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  536. 

6'  "Mais  parce  que  ceux  qui  y  ont  le  plus  d'interet  sont  les  Peres  Jesuites,  la  consideration  du  Pere 
Charlet,  qui  est  mon  parent  et  qui  est  maintenant  le  premier  de  leur  Compagnie,  depuis  la  mort  du  Gen- 
eral, duquel  il  etait  Assistant,  et  celle  du  Pere  Dinet  et  de  quelques  autres  des  principaux  de  leur  Corps, 
lesquels  je  crois  etre  veritablement  mes  amis,  a  ete  cause  que  je  m'en  suis  abstenu  (from  disproving  the 
old  principles)  jusques  ici."    Corr.,  Vol.  IV,  p.  225. 
f'^^Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  286. 
^^Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  409. 
">  Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  100;  Vol.  IV,  p.  156. 

"  Principalement  parce  qu'ayant  autrefois  ete  instruit  pres  de  neuf  ans  dans  un  de  vos  colleges,  j'ai 
concu  depuis  ma  jeunesse  tant  d'estime  et  j'ai  encore  maintenant  tant  de  respect  pour  votre  vertu  et  pour 
votre  doctrine,  que  j 'aime  beaucoup  mieux  etre  repris  par  vous  que  par  d'autres."  Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  100^ 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  55 

ence  for  his  teachers  were  dictated  rather  by  the  fear  of  a  possible  perse- 
cution than  by  love  and  devotion,  although  the  latter  feelings,  inocu- 
lated in  childhood,  do  not  seem  to  have  left  him  completely.  We  hear 
him  in  one  of  his  letters  rejoicing  over  the  praise  received  by  him  from 
the  two  prominent  Jesuit-fathers,  Pere  Charlet  and  Pere  Dinet,  for 
this  gave  him  hope  that  the  whole  Company  of  the  Jesuits  would  be 
on  his  side.  In  his  anxiety  to  be  considered  orthodox  he  missed  no 
occasion  to  assert  that  his  philosophy  was  perfectly  harmless  to 
theology  and  that  it  did  not  contain  anything  which  could  not  be 
reconciled  with  religion  or  with  approved  authors. '^^ 

Descartes,  as  we  have  shown,  particularly  anxious  to  avoid  all 
conflicts  with  the  church,  showed  himself,  when,  in  spite  of  precautions, 
he  got  into  conflict,  quite  ready  to  take  back  his  statements.  At  the 
news  of  Galileo's  condemnation  he  did  not  even  think  of  attempting  to 
demonstrate  the  truth  of  his  position  which,  he  found,  was  in  perfect 
agreement  with  facts,  but  openly  declared  "je  ne  voudrais  toutefois 
pour  rien  du  monde  les  soutenir  (these  doctrines)  contre  I'autorit^ 
de  I'Eglise."  ^2  Such  a  concession  on  the  part  of  Descartes  is  interesting, 
for  he  was  not  of  a  yielding  temper  and  fought  for  his  opinions  when 
objections  were  made  from  the  point  of  view  of  science  with  no  bearing 
on  the  teachings  of  the  church.  He  was  provoked  when  his  originality 
was  disputed  in  whatever  did  not  interfere  with  theology. 

4 

Despite  Descartes's  efforts,  his  orthodoxy  was  very  much  suspected. 
After  his  death  it  was  inquired  whether  he  was  pious  or  whether  he 
spoke  freely  of  religion.  There  had  spread  rumors  that,  dying,  he 
confessed  to  the  Princess  of  Sweden  that  he  did  not  believe  in  God  and 
immortality.  His  friends,  however,  denied  that  he  ever  made  such 
confessions. 

This  strong  suspicion  from  the  side  of  orthodoxy  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  Descartes  was  ambiguous  in  his  treatment  of  religious  questions. 
Despite  the  fact  that  he  gave  in  his  Meditations  such  a  prominent  place 
to  the  proofs  of  the  existence  of  God  and  of  the  distinction  between 
soul  and  body,  his  relation  to  these  questions  was  such  as  to  trouble 
the  orthodox  mind.  As  long  as  Descartes  gave  us  his  unbiassed  con- 
clusions based  only  on  the  grounds  of  experiment  and  observation,  he, 
in  his  account  of  man,  explained  away  the  soul  and  in  his  account  of  the 
world  left  no  room  for  providence  and  grace.    Only  when  rumors  con- 

'1  "  Puisqu'on  ne  m'oppose  ici  que  I'autorite  d'Aristote  et  de  ses  sectateurs,  et  que  je  ne  dissimule  point 
que  je  crois  moins  a  cet  auteur  qu'a  ma  raison,  je  ne  vols  pas  que  je  doive  me  mettre  beaucoup  en  peine 
de  repondre."    Vol.  VIII,  p.  281,  Ed.  Cousin;  Adam  and  Tannery  Edition,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  432,  Latin. 

"  Corr.,  Vol.  I,  p.  28s. 


56  METAPHYSICS     OF    THE     SUPERNATURAL 

cerning  his  doubt  had  spread  and  he  was  asked  to  apply  his  method  to 
matters  of  faith,  he  gave  in  his  Discourse  and  his  Meditations  the 
demonstrations  concerning  God  and  the  soul,  so  as  to  testify  to  his 
orthodoxy.  In  the  following  works,  however,  he  went  back  to  what  he 
had  said  before  from  the  scientific  point  of  view.  He  thus  left  in  doubt 
his  sincerity  concerning  belief  in  God  and  the  soul.  Moreover,  the 
question  of  the  soul  was  treated  in  his  works  in  such  an  indirect  way 
that  the  existence  of  a  soul  and  its  immortality  were  not  even  touched 
upon;  the  distinction  made  between  soul  and  body  left  the  question 
of  the  existence  of  a  soul  and  its  immortality  open.  Further  explana- 
tions of  his  beliefs  as  to  God  and  the  soul,  which  we  find  in  his  corre- 
spondence, seem  to  point  rather  to  the  fact  that  he  did  not  believe  in 
a  soul  as  conceived  in  theology,  and  that  God  was  to  him  only  a  con- 
x;ept.  Thus,  in  a  letter  to  Mersenne,  he  saw  in  the  theological  ascrip- 
tion of  extension  to  God  the  same  mistake  as  ascribing  corporeal  exis- 
tence to  non-existences.  With  regard  to  the  same  question  he  remarked 
that  in  considering  things  of  thought  as  existent  things  the  mind  plays 
only  with  its  own  shadows. '^^  In  a  letter  to  Elizabeth,  the  relation  of 
the  soul  to  the  bodyis  compared  to  that  of  weight  to  matter.  Thesoul  is 
thus  made  dependent  on  the  body.  In  another  letter  to  the  same  prin- 
cess, he  says  that  the  soul  being  united  with  the  body  may  part  with  it, 
but  adds  that  he  did  not  deal  with  this  question  in  his  works,  for  this 
characteristic  of  the  soul  disproves  its  immortality  and  his  purpose 
was  to  prove  it.  With  regard  to  a  life  beyond,  he  writes  to  her:  "Et 
quoique  la  Religion  nous  enseigne  beaucoup  de  choses  sur  ce  sujet, 
j'avoue  neanmoins  en  moi  une  infirmite,  qui  m'est,  ce  me  semble, 
commune  avec  la  plupart  des  hommes,  a  savoir  que,  nonobstant  que 
nous  veuillions  croire,  et  meme  que  nous  pensions  croire  tres  fermement 
tout  ce  qui  nous  est  enseigne  par  la  Religion,  nous  n'avons  pas  nean- 
moins coutume  d'etre  si  touches  des  choses  que  la  seule  Foi  nous 
enseigne,  et  ou  notre  raison  ne  pent  atteindre,  que  de  celles  qui  nous 
sont  avec  cela  persuadees  par  des  raisons  naturelles  fort  evidentes."  ^* 
In  mentioning  to  her  a  book  by  Igby  dealing  with  the  soul's  state  after 
death,  he  remarked:  "...  laissant  a  part  ce  que  la  foi  nous  en 
enseigne,  je  confesse  que  par  la  seule  raison  naturelle  nous  pouvons  bien 
faire  beaucoup  de  conjectures  a  notre  avantage  et  avoir  de  belles 

"  "Que  Dieu  est  positivement  et  reellement  infini,  c'est  a  dire  existent  partout  .  .  .  je  n'admets 
pas  ce  partout  .  .  .  croyant  .  .  .  qu'a  raison  de  son  essence  il  n'a  absolument  aucune  relation 
au  lieu  .  .  .  Les  difficultes  suivantes  me  paraissent  naitre  du  prejuge  qui  nous  a  fait  croire  que 
toutes  substances,  celles-la  meme  que  nous  reconnaissons  incorporelles,  sont  veritablement  etendues,  et 
de  la  mauvaise  maniere  de  philosopher  sur  les  etres  de  raison,  en  attribuant  les  proprietes  de  I'etre  ou 
de  la  chose  au  non-etre  .  .  .  et  c'est  bien  conclure,  lorsque  vous  dites  que  I'esprit  se  joue  avec  ses 
propres  ombres,  lorsqu'il  considere  les  etres  de  raison."  Corr.,  Vol.  V,  p.  343,  Latin;  Transl.  by  Cousin, 
Vol.  X,  p.  239. 

'<  Corr.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  580. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  57 

esperances;  mais  non  point  en  avoir  aucune  assurance."  In  a  letter  to 
Igby  we  find  the  supposition  that  God  in  His  omnipotence  might  also 
destroy  the  soul  after  death. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Descartes's  statements  which  may  make 
one  question  his  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  in  God's 
existence  were  uttered  to  people  whose  influence  he  had  no  reason  to 
fear,  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  Henri  More,  of  England,  Igby,  or 
other  harmless  persons.  In  his  letters  to  Catholic  theologians  and 
Jesuits,  the  independence  of  the  soul  from  the  body  is  insisted  upon 
and  God  is  spoken  of  as  possessing  all  attributes  ascribed  to  him  by 
theology.  y 

RESUME 

A  study  of  Descartes's  philosophy  in  the  light  of  his  time  has  shown 
that  the  mixture  of  progressive  thought  and  tradition  in  his  philo- 
sophical system  is  due  to  the  circumstances  under  which  he  wrote. 
Descartes  was  one  of  the  progressive  thinkers  of  his  day;  but  in  that 
transition  period,  when  religion  was  the  main  interest  and  theology 
the  main  science,  original  ideas  were  suppressed  as  conflicting  with 
religious  and  theological  doctrines.  Descartes's  scientific  ideas  met  with 
opposition  from  the  side  of  orthodoxy  at  the  very  outset.  Therefore,  in 
his  love  for  peace  and  rest  on  account  of  weak  health  and  inherited 
timidity  and  conservatism,  both  of  which  were  strengthened  through 
the  conservative  spirit  of  the  Jesuit  college,  Descartes  used  extreme 
caution ;  he  turned  away  from  his  naturalistic  philosophy  to  the  tradi- 
tional problems  and  continued  to  express  progressive  ideas  only  in 
disguise. 


CHAPTER  V 
DESCARTES  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

/  I 

In  the  history  of  philosophy  Descartes's  fame  rests  on  his  treatment 
of  traditional  problems  and  principles.  The  following  appreciation  is 
characteristic  of  the  historical  reconstruction  of  Descartes:  "La  gran- 
deur de  Descartes,  sa  vraie  grandeur,  est  dans  ces  pages  immortelles 
ou  il  met  en  lumiere  la  preuve  de  I'existence  de  Dieu  tiree  de  I'idee  que 
nous  en  avons."  ^  Similarly  the  traditional  idealistic  principles,  the 
Cogito  ergo  sum,  the  principle  of  distinctness  and  clearness  of  our  ideas 
as  the  criterion  of  truth,  and  the  principle  of  God  on  which  to  ground 
this  criterion,  are  considered  as  the  most  original  ideas  of  his  philosophy. 
He  himself,  however,  as  Falckenberg  sees  it,  attributed  to  them  no 
more  importance  than  is  attributed  to  a  vestibule  as  compared  to  the 
whole  building.  However,  "  the  vestibule  has  brought  the  builder  more 
fame,  and  has  proved  more  enduring,  than  the  temple:  of  the  latter 
only  the  ruins  remain;  the  former  has  remained  undestroyed  through 
the  centuries."  ^  Descartes's  real  contributions  were  overlooked:  the 
originality  of  his  scientific  philosophy,  his  appeal  to  reason,  his  recog- 
nition of  the  true  justification  for  individualism — the  equal  capacity 
for  reasoning  in  all  men — the  true  significance  of  his  doubt,  met  with 
no  due  consideration  and  appreciation. 


The  burden  of  responsibility  for  such  a  misrepresentation  of  Des- 
cartes lies  partly  on  Descartes  himself,  partly  on  his  theological  con- 
temporaries and  the  idealistic  historians  of  later  periods.  As  was 
pointed  out,  Descartes  was  compelled  to  keep  his  progressive  ideas 
behind  the  screen  of  orthodoxy.  His  contemporary  friends,  to  give 
his  philosophy  the  appearance  of  legality  and  to  secure  for  it  a  favor- 
able reception,  emphasized  the  traditional  problems  in  his  philosophy 
to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else.  The  merits  of  his  scientific  theories 
were  appreciated  by  them  in  the  light  of  the  Bible  and  the  teachings  of 
the  church.  Thus  in  an  article  Traite  de  Vinfini,^  of  1750,  by  Abbot 
Terrason,  there  is  discussed  the  import  of  Descartes's  suggestion  of  the 

1  E.  T.  L.  Gautier,  Portraits  du  XVII^  siicle. 

'  Falckenberg,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  transl.  by  A.  C.  Armstrong. 

'  Philosophical  Review,  1905. 


METAPHYSICS  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL       59 

possibility  of  many  earths  and  of  the  infinity  of  the  world  from  the 
point  of  view  of  redemption  and  the  glory  of  God,  to  both  of  which 
Descartes's  view  is  shown  to  be  favorable.  Descartes's  mechanistic 
theory  is  estimated  by  Henry  More  in  his  Antidote  against  Atheism, 
written  in  17 12,  as  a  doctrine  of  Moses  contained  in  the  Jewish  Cabbala. 

In  later  periods  when  the  historians,  themselves  philosophers, 
thought  they  had  emancipated  themselves  from  traditional  beliefs, 
they  based  their  reconstruction  of  Descartes  on  the  belief  in  a  "world 
spirit"  manifesting  itself  according  to  definite  laws.  From  this  point 
of  view  the  Cogito  ergo  sum  was  very  much  welcomed.  Hegel  seized 
upon  it  as  a  justification  of  his  stage  division  in  the  process  of  the 
"world-spirit's"  manifestation.  The  Cogito  ergo  sum  was  exactly  the 
identification  of  Being  and  Thought  which,  according  to  Hegel,  the 
world-spirit  was  supposed  to  have  reached  on  that  stage.  "In  the 
celebrated  Cogito  ergo  sum  we  thus  have  Being  and  Thought  insepar- 
ably bound  together."  ■*  That  this  identification  of  Being  and  Thought 
had  once  manifested  itself  in  St.  Augustine,  Hegel  in  his  Idea-intoxica- 
tion overlooked. 

The  significance  of  Descartes's  doubt  was  found  by  him  in  the 
fact  that  the  renunciation  of  everything  was  an  affirmation  that  the 
world  spirit  had  arrived  at  the  stage  in  which  "thought  commences 
from  itself." 

Thus  Hegel  approached  Descartes's  system  from  the  standpoint  of 
his  own  philosophy  and  emphasized  in  it  only  those  points  where  he 
could  locate  "universal  reflection,"  which,  he  declared,  should  have 
first  claim  upon  our  attention ;  this  he  found  in  Descartes's  speculation. 
The  latter's  "empirical  reflection  and  reasoning  from  particular 
grounds,  from  experience,  facts,  phenomena,  being  brought  into  play 
in  the  naivest  manner"  did  not  fit  into  Hegel's  scheme,  and  was  thus 
left  without  attention.  Descartes's  system  of  Physics,  which  is  the 
result  of  observation  and  experience,  was  considered  by  Hegel  as  the 
work  of  the  understanding  and,  therefore,  as  of  no  special  interest  to 
him.     He  found  it  out  of  place  and  obscure. 

Hegel's  philosophy,  in  alleging  that  the  Prussian  state  was  an  evolu- 
tion of  the  world-spirit,  had  aroused  great  interest  in  the  past  and 
influenced  the  history  of  philosophy.  The  standard  histories  of  phil- 
osophy written  in  modern  times  are  by  men  of  this  tradition.  They 
are  all  written  from  the  same  idealistic  standpoint.  Great  injustice 
has  been  done  to  Descartes  by  all  of  them;  once  framed  in  idealism, 
his  true  picture  never  afterward  appeared  in  the  history  of  philosophy. 
It  can  be  found  in  his  works  only. 

« W.  Fr.  Hegel.  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Philosophy,  transl.  by  Haldane  and  Simson,  p.  228. 


CHAPTER  VI 
CONCLUSION 

A  systematic  study  of  Descartes's  philosophy  has  shown  that  a  com- 
plete omission  of  traditional  problems  leaves  no  lack  in  the  philosophi- 
cal system.  It  would,  however,  cause  a  break  in  the  history  of  phil- 
osophy. Does  this  indicate  that  philosophy  in  general  is  bound  to  deal 
with  these  traditional  problems?  It  has  been  said  that  philosophy 
begins  where  science  leaves  off,  and  so  if  the  realm  of  the  scientist  is  all 
in  this  world,  the  realm  of  the  philosopher  is  naturally  somewhere 
beyond.  Such  a  conception  of  philosophy  has  undoubtedly  been  de- 
rived from  its  history.  For  philosophy,  though  originally  evoked  by 
facts,  has  in  the  course  of  time  drifted  away  into  abstract  regions  where 
shadows  take  the  place  of  facts.  The  history  of  philosophy  is  full  of 
problems  about  problems  and  not  of  problems  about  facts.  For  the 
circumstances  that  once  called  forth  these  problems  have  passed  out  of 
existence  and  no  longer  present  problems.  The  result  is  that  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy  is  a  play  of  conceptions.  It  represents  a  chain  of 
transformations  of  one  and  the  same  material,  which  has  been  worked 
over  and  over  again,  every  philosopher  impressing  upon  it  his  personal 
and  national  characteristics;  the  practical  Englishman  putting  upon 
it  a  stamp  of  common  sense,  the  Frenchman  with  his  love  for  precision 
and  clearness  making  distinctions  which  the  German  strains  every 
nerve  to  obscure.  In  German  treatment  which,  as  Falckenberg^  says, 
"allows  the  fancy  and  the  heart"  to  take  an  important  part  in  the  dis- 
cussion, the  philosophical  material  resulted  in  a  mystical  and  poetical 
mass  of  descriptions  of  imaginary  ultimates.  The  region  of  ultimates 
had  been  for  centuries  the  home  of  the  philosopher.  He  descends  to 
facts  only  in  order  to  place  these  facts  in  the  ultimate  realm.  The 
question  of  ultimates  was  not,  however,  born  with  the  philosopher. 
It  did  not  bother  the  minds  of  the  philosophers  as  long  as  their  inquiries 
were  directed  just  by  the  desire  for  knowledge.  The  Greeks  were  not. 
concerned  with  this  question.  The  problems  of  the  early  Greeks,  with 
whom  our  philosophical  record  begins,  were  called  forth  by  facts  of 
nature.  The  fact  that  things  come  and  go,  live  and  die,  started  the 
Greek  on  his  inquiry.  In  the  Grseco-Roman  period  the  moral  issue 
had  a  natural  support  in  the  social  and  political  institutions  of  the  day. 

» Falckenberg.  Op.  Cil. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  6l 

Even  Plato,  who  was  a  poet  to  the  depth  of  his  soul,  reached  his  ideals 
through  the  conditions  of  his  time.  Protagoras  opposed  all  theories 
and  looked  for  truth  in  a  practical  way.  Aristotle's  metaphysics  deals 
with  facts.  The  starting-point  of  both  Plato  and  Democritus,  the  two 
opposites,  in  whom  Greek  philosophy  culminates,  is  the  world  of 
experience.  Only  beginning  with  the  medieval  period  did  philosophy 
become  characterized  by  a  complete  disregard  of  the  facts  of  nature. 
The  medieval  philosophers  were  concerned  with  the  world  beyond, 
and,  in  their  striving  to  come  nearer  to  God,  they  got  more  and  more 
away  from  God's  world.  The  problems  created  by  the  supernatural 
took  complete  hold  of  philosophy  and  it  became  a  sort  of  commentary 
on  theology.  There  is  in  it  much  about  heaven  and  very  little  about  the 
earth.  The  earthly  climate  does  not  seem  to  agree  with  the  philoso- 
pher; he  stretches  his  imagination  to  heavenly  regions  and  to  the  clouds. 
How  many  ingenious  reveries  and  poetical  fancies  are  given  for  the 
clearing  up  of  truth?  At  best  the  philosopher  gives  us  a  picture  of  his 
own  world,  which  is,  however,  only  a  very  insignificant  part  of  the 
whole  world.  Moreover,  "if  the  mind  of  man  works  upon  itself,  as 
the  spider  works  his  web,  then  it  is  endless,  and  brings  forth,  indeed, 
cobwebs  of  learning,  admirable  for  the  fineness  of  thread  and  work, 
but  of  no  substance  and  profit."  ^ 

Can  the  layman,  therefore,  be  blamed  for  looking  at  philosophy 
as  an  idle  study?  What  achievements  can  philosophy  offer  to  such 
criticism?  That  the  philosopher  has  never  proved  anything  has 
become  a  truism.  The  philosopher,  however,  seems  to  think  that  it  is 
his  business  to  deal  with  questions,  the  solution  of  which  lies  somewhere 
beyond.  Professor  Calkins,  in  the  introduction  to  Persistent  Problems 
of  Philosophy,  admits  that  philosophers  have  not  done  much  for  the 
advancement  of  knowledge,  but  concludes  with  the  encouragement  to 
the  idealistic  philosopher  that  to  be  able  to  put  questions  and  to  know 
why  one  does  not  know  is  also  an  advantage.  But  has  the  philosopher 
found  out  why  he  does  not  know?  It  is  true  the  apology  of  the  phil- 
osopher has  always  been  the  limitation  of  the  human  understanding; 
it  has  been  found  inadequate  to  penetrate  God's  council.  Despite  this 
incapacity  of  the  human  faculty  to  grasp  divine  things,  the  philosopher 
has  not  given  up  mingling  in  God's  affairs.  Such  persistency  is  worth 
inquiry.  In  connection  with  this  question  it  must  be  taken  into 
consideration  that  philosophy  had  been  predominantly  cultivated  by 
theologians.  In  the  middle  ages  philosophy  was  exclusively  in  the 
hands  of  monks  and  priests,  that  class  which  feels  itself  called  upon  to 
mediate  between  heaven  and  earth.     Therefore,  an  endeavor  on  the 

'  Bacon,  Advancement  of  Learning. 


62  METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL 

part  of  those  philosophers  to  get  an  insight  into  heaven  was  quite 
natural.  The  romanticists,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Hegel,  were  theologians. 
Of  other  modern  philosophers  Berkeley  was  a  bishop,  Leibnitz  and 
Spinoza,  students  of  theology.  That  theologians  should  deal  with 
theological  questions  is  not  surprising;  but  it  is  a  question  what  made 
philosophers,  who  were  not  theologians,  interested  predominantly  in 
theological  problems.  The  preservation  of  these  problems  in  philoso- 
phy is  partly  due  to  the  historical  interest  of  the  philosopher.  To  illus- 
trate how  problems  are  being  perpetually  continued  in  philosophy, 
Descartes's  distinction  between  mind  and  body  was  the  source  of 
innumerable  arguments  concerning  the  ultimate  spirituality  or  mater- 
iality of  the  world.  Hobbes  thought  it  was  all  material,  Berkeley 
all  spiritual.  Leibnitz  conceived  a  world  of  many  spirits  as  more  plausi- 
ble. Accepting  spirit  as  the  reality,  he  was  engaged  in  disproving  the 
independent  reality  of  extension,  as  thought  to  be  held  by  Descartes. 
Locke's  dualism  led  Berkeley  to  his  world  of  ideas.  Berkeley's  conclu- 
sion supplied  the  material  to  Hume.  Hume  again  aroused  Kant  out  of 
his  "dogmatic  slumber."  Hume's  doctrine  of  the  mind  as  a  bundle  of 
perceptions  made  Kant  look  for  relating  principles.  The  distinction 
between  sense  and  thought  made  by  Kant's  predecessors  led  him  to  his 

twofold  world  of  noumena.  The  attempt  of  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  and 
Berkeley  to  prove  the  existence  of  God  on  a  rational  basis  made  Kant 
deal  with  this  question,  arguing  that  it  can  not  be  proved  by  pure 

^  reason.  Kant's  thing-in-itself  turned  Fichte  from  his  scientific  deter- 
minism to  the  elaboration  of  an  absolute  self.  Schelling  and  Hegel  also 
entered  the  philosophical  field  by  the  way  paved  by  Kant's  thing-in- 
itself,  the  former  developing  the  thing-in-itself  into  an  unknowable, 
and  the  latter  into  a  self  which  finds  expression  in  all  finite  selves. 
Hegel  in  his  turn  started  a  school  which  still  blunders  in  the  region 
of  the  Absolute  and  sees  no  way  out  of  it  into  the  world  of  our 
experience. 

The  historical  interest  was,  however,  not  always  the  thing  that  led 
philosophers  into  dealing  with  traditional  material.  Descartes,  Bacon, 
and  Hobbes,  the  pioneers  of  modern  philosophy  who  intended  a  com- 
plete break  with  history,  are  nevertheless  engaged  in  remedying  medie- 
val philosophy.  How  it  came  about  that  the  traditional  problems  were 
continued  even  by  those  who  attempted  to  get  away  from  history  can 
be  disclosed  only  through  a  study  of  the  philosopher  in  connection  with 

/'iTis  environment.  Thus  the  study  of  Descartes  in  the  light  of  his  time 
has  shown  that  he  was  brought  to  the  treatment  of  traditional  prob- 
lems not  by  his  interest  in  life,  but  by  the  conflict  of  free-thinking  and 
orthodoxy  in  his  day.     Professor  Bush  has  shown  how  the  strict 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  63 

censorship  continued  to  be  a  "factor  in  the  genesis  of  idealism"  a  good 
while  after  Descartes.^ 

But  no  matter  what  historical  background  caused  the  development, 
"philosophy"  has  come  to  be  anything  but  philosophy,  if  we  take  it  in 
its  original  meaning,  i.  e.,  as  the  reflection  about  facts  for  the  sake  of  a 
better  understanding  and  better  knowledge  of  them.  The  present 
state  of  affairs  in  philosophy  is  considered  deplorable  not  only  by 
laymen,  but  also  by  professional  philosophers,  and  various  remedies 
have  been  suggested.  Among  these  there  is  one  which,  when  applied 
to  the  history  of  philosophy,  must  necessarily  stop  the  endless  chain 
of  dialectical  circles  into  which  the  cultivation  of  the  ideals  of  bygone 
times  has  resulted.  This  is  the  fruitful  distinction  of  genuine  and  arti- 
ficial problems,  made  by  Professor  Bush  in  a  recent  article  on  the 
Emancipation  of  Intelligence.  For,  "to  show  that  the  problem  is  about 
a  fictitious  subject-matter  is  to  solve  it."  The  genuineness  or  artificial- 
ity of  a  problem  is,  according  to  Professor  Bush,  discovered  by  the 
inquiry  as  to  what  raised  the  question;  the  application  of  this  test  to 
the  history  of  philosophy  has  revealed  the  fact  that  present-day 
philosophy  is  mainly  occupied  with  animistic  traditions  and  that, 
therefore,  the  greater  number  of  philosophical  problems  are  artificial 
problems. 

Though  the  sifting  of  artificial  problems  from  philosophy  may  lead 
to  the  discarding  of  many  a  good  old  problem  to  which  professional 
philosophy  seems  to  be  very  much  attached  and  to  leaving  theology 
to  the  theologian,  the  philosopher  for  this  reason  will  not  have  to 
close  his  shop.  For  if  "philosophy  is  thought  about  life,  representing 
but  the  deepening  and  broadening  of  the  common  thoughtfulness,"  * 
all  problems  of  life  require  its  services.  Even  metaphysics,  but  only 
one,  whose  "greatest  ally  is  Logic,"  ^  is  a  necessity  in  life.  For  greater 
proficiency  the  philosopher  will  have,  however,  to  associate  with  the 
scientist,  and  to  go  hand  in  hand  with  him  instead  of  beginning  where 
the  latter  left  off,  for  "toutes  les  sciences  sont  filles  de  la  philosophic: 
ou  plfltot  toutes  les  sciences,  en  tant  qu'elles  decoulent  de  I'observation 
et  du  raisonnement,  et  qu'elles  ne  nous  donnent  que  les  produits 
exactement  conformes  a  la  nature  des  choses,  se  reunissent  pour  com- 
poser elle-m6me  la  philosophic."  ^ 

'W.  T.  Bush,  "A  Factor  in  the  Genesis  of  Idealism."  Essays  Philosophical  and  Psychological  in 
Honor  of  William  James. 

*R.  B.  Perry.  Approach  to  Philosophy. 

6  F.  J.  E.  Woodbridge,  Metaphysics. 

•  J  L.  Piestre.  Les  Crimes  de  la  Philosophte. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTES 

I  maintain  (p.  27)  that  Descartes's  failure  to  solve  the  traditional 
problems  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  Descartes  did  not  stop  to  con- 
sider that  the  nature  of  these  problems  is  such  as  to  guarantee  no 
success  even  if  most  carefully  studied  by  means  of  the  most  perfect 
dialectics.  Descartes,  however,  commits  this  mistake  only  in  his  works 
that  deal  with  the  traditional  problems.  In  his  Rules,  nevertheless, 
he  makes  the  following  statement:  "The  man  who  faithfully  complies 
with  the  former  rules  in  the  solution  of  any  difficulty,  and  yet  by  the 
present  rule  is  bidden  to  desist  at  a  certain  point,  will  then  know  for 
certainty  that  no  amount  of  application  will  enable  him  to  attain  to 
the  knowledge  desired,  and  that  not  owing  to  a  defect  in  his  intelligence, 
but  because  the  nature  of  the  problem  itself,  or  the  fact  that  he  is 
human,  prevents  him.  But  this  knowledge  is  not  the  less  science  than 
that  which  reveals  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself;  in  fact,  he  would  seem 
^o  have  some  mental  defect  who  should  extend  his  curiosity  farther."  ^ 

The  history  of  philosophy  interprets  Descartes  as  maintaining  the 
identity  of  matter  and  extension.  It  is,  however,  in  his  later  works 
that  he  expresses  himself  so  as  to  warrant  such  a  conclusion.  In  his 
Rules,  he  confutes  the  scholastic  notion  of  extension  and  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  while  body  possesses  extension,  extension  is  not  body} 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  Descartes's  doctrine  of  extension  is  con- 
tained in  Calvin's  Institutes,  published  originally  in  Geneva  in  1541. 
The  same  conclusion  as  to  the  identity  of  body  and  extension  was 
reached  by  Calvin  through  theological  interest.  This  theory  is  ex- 
pressed by  both  authors  in  similar  words.  In  the  Institutes  it  says: 
Quel  est  nostre  corps.  N'est-il  pas  tel;  qu'il  ha  sa  propre  et  certain 
measure  .  .  .  ?  .  .  .  Et  ceste  est  la  condition  du  corps,  qu'il 
consiste  en  un  lieu  certain  en  sa  propre  et  certaine  mesure  et  en  sa 
form."  ^  The  corresponding  words  in  Descartes  are:  .  .  .  "Nous 
trouverons  que  la  veritable  idee  que  nous  en  avons  consiste  en  cela  seul 
que  nous  appercevons  distinctement  qu'elle  est  une  substance  etendue 
en  longeur,  largeur,  et  profondeur:  or  cela  meme  est  compris  en  I'idee 
que  nous  avons  de  I'espace,  non  seulement  de  celui  qui  est  plein  de 
corps,  mais  encore  de  celui  qu'on  appelle  vide."  ^    The  same  identifica- 

1  Rules,  Works,  Vol.  I,  p.  23.    Transl.  by  Haldane  and  Ross. 

'  Rules,  Works,  Vol.  I,  pp.  58,  59.    Transl.  by  Haldane  ana  Ross. 

'J.  Calvin,  Institution  de  la  Religion  Chrestienne,  texte  de  1541,  Paris,  1911,  p.  641. 

*Principes,  Part  II,  Art.  XI. 


METAPHYSICS    OF    THE    SUPERNATURAL  65 

tion  of  body  and  extension  we  find  in  St.  Augustine  in  the  following 
passage:  "Spatia  locorum  tolle  corporibus,  nusquam  erunt,  et  quia 
nusquamerunt  necerunt."  ^  .  .  .  "Prius  abs  te  quaero  utrum  corpus 
nullum  putes  esse  quod  non  pro  niodo  suo  habeat  aliquam  longitudinem 
et  latitudinem  et  altitudinem?  Si  hoc  demas  corporibus,  quantum  mea 
opinio  est,  neque  sentiri  possunt,  neque  omnino  corpora  esse  recte 
existimari."  ^ 

Descartes's  conception  of  freedom,  which  he  gives  when  brought  to 
this  question  by  discussion,  suggests  the  biological  conception  as  exem- 
plified by  Bergson.  The  expressions  of  both  authors  on  this  point 
bear  close  resemblance.  Thus  Descartes  says:  "  II  faut  remarquer  que 
la  liberte  peut  etre  consideree,  dans  les  actions  de  la  volonte,  ou  avant 
qu'elles  soient  exercees,  ou  au  moment  meme  qu'on  les  exerce."^ 
Bergson  says:  "La  these  de  la  liberte  se  trouverait  ainsi  verifiee  si  Ton 
consentait  a  ne  chercher  cette  liberte  que  dans  un  certain  charact^re 
de  la  decision  prise,  dans  I'acte  libre  en  un  mot."  ®  "L'acte  libre  se 
produit  dans  le  temps  qui  s'ecoule."  ^ 

6  St.  Augustine,  Epist.  57,  quoted  by  Bouillier,  Hisloire  de  la  Philosophie  Carlesienne,  Part  I,  p.  182. 

•St.  Augustine.  De  quantit.  animce,  Chap.  IV,  quoted  by  Bouillier,  Op.  Cit.,  p.  182. 

'  Works.  Vol.  Ill,  p.  379- 

'  H.  Bergson,  Donnees  immidiates  de  la  conscience,  p.  132. 

» Id.,  p.  168. 


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writings).     17 12. 

More,  Louis  T.  "The  Occult  Obsessions  of  Science — with  Descartes  as  an  object- 
lesson."     Hibbert  Journal,  Vol.  X,  April,  1912. 

Pluquet,  Abbe  A.  A.     Dictionnaire  des  heresies,  17 16-1790. 

Terrason,  Abbot.     "Traite  de  I'lnfini,"  Philosophical  Review,  1905. 

Voyage  Du  Monde  de  Descartes.     Paris,  MDCXCI. 

Suite  Du  Voyage  Du  Monde  de  Descartes.     Amsterdam,  MDCCXIII. 


VITA 

Lina  Kahn  was  born  in  Libau,  Courland,  November  ii,  1887.  After 
a  preliminary  preparation  at  home  she  went  to  the  gymnasium  of 
her  native  town,  from  which  she  was  graduated  in  1903.  In  1904  she 
completed  the  normal  training  course  in  the  same  institution.  In  1907 
she  took  up  her  studies,  with  a  major  in  Germanic  philology,  at  Colum- 
bia University.  After  taking  the  M.A.  degree  in  1909  she  made 
philosophy  her  major  study,  and  was  in  residence  at  Columbia  until 
1913.  when  this  dissertation  was  completed  and  defended. 


I 


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